At least she had the names of some more of the elder Mma Sebina’s friends, and that gave her something to work on. She had set Mma Makutsi to work on the tracing of these people—a task which her assistant always performed quickly and effectively, principally through resort to the Botswana telephone directory, but also through the judicious use of a cousin in the tax office. This cousin was happy to reveal the addresses of taxpayers to Mma Makutsi, whom she had long admired. So when Mma Ramotswe had given her the names of the friends of Mma Sebina’s mother, it had taken Mma Makutsi not much more than a day to come up with a neatly typed list of names and addresses. There had been four names on the list; three had been traced, and only one still had a question mark pencilled in against it. Of the three names for which an address had been found, two were in Gaborone: one lived in a flat near the new magistrates’ court, the other in a house a few blocks away from the Grand Palm Hotel. Both had telephone numbers.

On the morning after her trip to Mochudi, Mma Ramotswe left the office to seek out the woman who lived near the Grand Palm Hotel. She had had a short discussion with Mma Makutsi before she left, but it had touched only briefly on the Sebina case. Mma Makutsi was more concerned about the ruined bed and the imminent return to town of Phuti Radiphuti.

“He will be back tomorrow, Mma Ramotswe,” she said. “And the first thing he will ask is: How is the new bed? And what will I say to that? It is no longer? Is that what I will say?”

“We must tell him before he asks,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And remember, I have offered to do this thing for you. I will go to see him and tell him what happened.”

Mma Makutsi winced. “Oh, Mma…”

Mma Ramotswe smiled. “For goodness’ sake, Mma Makutsi! It is only a bed. There are many beds in this country. There are millions of beds…”

She stopped. Were there millions of beds in Botswana? Was that, perhaps, an exaggeration?

Mma Makutsi noticed the hesitation. Be Accurate had been the motto of the Botswana Secretarial College, and she could not let this wild statement pass. “I think that there are less than two million people in this country,” she said. “And not everyone has a bed. There are some people who have no bed at all, and then there are all those people who share a bed. So there are not millions of beds, Mma Ramotswe. There are maybe…”

Charlie had come in at this point, bearing the mug from which he drank his tea. “Beds?” he said. “What is all this about beds?”

“We are having a private conversation about beds,” snapped Mma Makutsi. “This is women’s talk. It is none of your business.”