She assumed that it was a man, as such a letter would never have been written by a woman. It was not that women never threatened physical violence—they did, even if not as readily as men did. One of the giveaways, as far as Mma Ramotswe was concerned, was the way in which she herself had been described. One woman would not describe another as…traditionally built in that insulting way. All women knew that traditional build was something that could happen to anyone, and would not abuse another for it. Nor would a woman single out another woman’s glasses for dismissive attention; hair and skin were the things a spiteful woman would notice—not glasses. No, the writer of the letter was a man, and a man who was, she suspected, consumed by envy. Nobody but an envious person, she thought, would write an anonymous letter of that sort.

Mma Ramotswe was still feeling shocked when Mma Makutsi, who had tucked the letter into an open file at the front of the cabinet, noticed the car drawing up outside.

“That lady is early,” she observed. “She is parking next to your van. She is trying to get a bit of shade for her car.”

Mma Ramotswe pulled herself together. She would put the letter out of her mind and give her full attention to her client. Letters like that were best ignored. Their writers wanted one to worry—that was the whole point of writing them. They never meant any of the threats they made; if they really wanted to harm somebody, then they went ahead and did it. Threateners threatened; doers did.

Now, standing up behind her desk, as she always did when a client entered the room, Mma Ramotswe reached out to shake hands with the woman who had written that other, quite different letter to her.

“My name is Manka Sebina,” said the woman. “You have not met me before, Mma, but I have seen you. I have seen you over at that fabric store in the African mall. I have seen you going in there.”

Mma Ramotswe laughed good-naturedly. “This is a small town still,” she said. “You cannot go out without being seen! And it is always when you’re doing something like shopping or treating yourself to a doughnut. That is when you’re seen. You’re never seen when you’re doing something good, like going to church.”

The woman sat down. “But I have seen you doing that too, Mma,” she said. “I have seen you going into the Anglican cathedral opposite the hospital. And I saw you outside after the service once. Drinking tea with Bishop Mwamba.”