“It will be easy enough to find out,” she said. “I will follow this person, this person who is not Moganana, from the house in the morning. We shall see where he goes to work. Then it will be easy.” She paused. One would not want the client to imagine that it was too easy, or one’s entirely reasonable fee might be resented. “Or a bit easy,” she added. “In fact, difficult in parts and easy in others. Quite difficult, though.”

The client, however, was satisfied. “I’m sure that you will do it well, Mma Ramotswe,” she said. “And then justice will again reign supreme.”

It was a rather impressive way of describing the hoped-for outcome, but Mma Ramotswe nodded in agreement. People should not lie about who they are, she thought. Even if they do need somewhere to live.

The client looked at her watch. “I must not stay long, Mma,” she said. “The tea, though, is very good.”

“It is red bush,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It comes from down there somewhere.” She pointed south. “They make it down there and they bring it up here.”

“I see,” said the client. She looked at her watch again. “Will you do this thing tomorrow? Will you follow that man very soon?”

“I will do it as soon as I can,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Give us a week to find all this out.”

There was always that moment after the client had left when Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi looked at one another and reached a view. Sometimes, after a difficult session, they looked at one another in sympathy and embarrassment; on other occasions, the client would barely have left the office before Mma Makutsi would start to giggle. On this occasion there was no such reaction.

“I would like to work on this, Mma,” said Mma Makutsi. “I feel very sympathetic towards that lady.”

Mma Ramotswe nodded. “She is entitled to her house,” she said. “If you let a house to one person another person should not come and live in it. That is definitely dishonest.” She paused for a moment. “But the problem is, Mma, that you would need to follow that person, and you do not drive. If he works out on the Francistown Road then he probably has a car.”

Mma Makutsi thought for a moment. “Phuti could drive me,” she said. “Phuti has offered. He said that any time I needed to be driven anywhere, he would do it. Or he has drivers at the furniture store. He said that one of those men could be sent to drive me.”