found its way to its proper destination. On another occasion she had received a small parcel addressed to The woman who drives a white van, comes from Mochudi, and is married to a mechanic of some sort, Gaborone (I think). That was a gift from a woman to whom she had given a lift on the road to Lobatse. The woman’s car had broken down, and Mma Ramotswe had driven out of her way to deliver her safely to her home some twelve miles outside Lobatse. The woman had wanted to thank her but had not noted down her name and address. She had enough information, though, from their conversation to come up with that description and trust to the good will and knowledge of the Post Office to do the rest. They had had little difficulty in identifying Mma Ramotswe and had in due course placed the parcel in the agency’s post-box. It was an embroidered handkerchief, lovingly worked with small representations of creatures of the bush: a dik-dik, that tiny, timid antelope; a long-snouted anteater; a guinea fowl with minute white spots. Mma Ramotswe had expected no thanks for what she had done. You helped other people—you just did. Had her van broken down, then she would have hoped that somebody would have done the same for her, and she thought that they would.
She had slit open the letter addressed to The Detective Woman on the Tlokweng Road a few minutes before the return of Mma Makutsi and Charlie, and had absorbed the contents.
Dear Detective Lady, the letter had begun. I am sorry I do not know your name and do not have your post-box number. I believe, though, that you were recently engaged by my wife to investigate my behaviour. I have heard that you have now written to my wife and told her that I am not having an affair. I do not like to be rude, Mma, but may I ask you: How can you be so sure? You discovered that I was visiting a lady, and yet you tell my wife that I am an innocent man and that she should not divorce me. How do you know I’m innocent, Mma? Do you really think that I go to that lady to learn about mathematics? If you think that, Mma, then you are very foolish. Yours truly, L.D.M. Mogorosi, BA (University of Botswana).
Mma Ramotswe had read through the letter twice, and then sighed, and it was while she was trying to work out its implications that Mma Makutsi returned. She picked up the letter and began to pass it to Mma Makutsi.
“Well, Mma Makutsi, everything is becoming more complicated. I have received a letter—”
She got no further. Breathlessly, Mma Makutsi brushed the letter aside. “Oh, there are always letters, Mma. Every day there are letters. We can deal with the mail later on. I have some very important information to tell you about.”
“Very important,” said Charlie. “We have found a very important piece of evidence.”
“But this letter,” Mma Ramotswe said. “This letter is—”
Once again she got no further. “I’m going to make some tea,” said Mma Makutsi. “And while I’m making tea, I shall tell you what happened.”
Mma Ramotswe made a gesture of resignation. When Mma Makutsi had the bit between her teeth, as she did now, there was no point in trying to deflect her to another agenda. “All right, Mma,” she said. “I am listening.”
“Well,” began Mma Makutsi, “I went to the house of the mathematics teacher—”
Charlie corrected her. “We went, Mma. I was there too. It was a joint investigation.”
“Very well, Charlie, we went to this house and we knocked on the door.”
Mma Ramotswe waited politely. These preliminaries were not really necessary, but Mma Makutsi always insisted on them, quoting Clovis Andersen as the authority for the need to make a report as full as possible. It’s the small details, he wrote. At the time they may not seem important, but later on you may regret not writing them down. You never know what will be relevant at a later stage. Therefore, list everything—all steps taken, all people interviewed—even the weather may be worth saying something about.
Remembering that now, Mma Makutsi added, “I knocked three times.”
“And she was not in?” asked Mma Ramotswe.
“I knocked once as well,” Charlie chipped in. “That made a total of four, Mma. Three knocks from Mma Makutsi, and one from me.”
“Very interesting,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And then?”
“Then I told Charlie to go and