Such thoughts reminded Mma Ramotswe that she was now dealing with precisely such a matter, or would be dealing with it, when she got back to the Mma Sebina case. So, as she stood at the gate and waved goodbye to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni and Motholeli as they set off on their journey to the clinic over the border in Johannesburg, she was thinking not only of the little girl, hunched so poignantly in the passenger seat of the cab, but also of the inquiry which she would make later that morning in the office of her friend Mma Potokwane, tireless defender of orphans, maker of the finest fruit cake in Botswana, or at least in their part of Botswana, and custodian, she hoped, of a secret that would bring great joy to Mma Sebina. That is, if her brother really was going to be a joy; some brothers were not. But let us just assume, she told herself, that this one will be.

“AH, MMA RAMOTSWE,” called Mma Potokwane, from the window of her office at the orphan farm. “Come inside. Come over here.”

And as Mma Ramotswe mounted the two low steps that led up to Mma Potokwane’s room, the matron, standing at the open door, remarked to her guest, “I can always tell that it is you, even before I see you. I hear that noise that your van makes and I know that it is you.”

“What noise does my van make?”

Mma Potokwane held her guest’s gaze. Mma Ramotswe was her friend—an old friend, moreover, and there were not many subjects one could not raise with an old friend. But there were some. One thing one should never do is to criticise, even in the gentlest of manners, the spouse of a friend; nor their children; nor their taste in music, their dogs, their possessions in general, their choice of clothes in particular, their children’s choice of clothes (or spouses), or their cooking. Apart from that, one could talk about anything.