“But he would never be able to hear them,” said Mma Makutsi. “They were wasting their breath.”

“Yes,” said the apprentice. “It is possible that he had fallen asleep.”

Mma Makutsi sighed. “You would not fall asleep while you were jumping from an aeroplane. That doesn’t happen.”

“Oh yes?” challenged the apprentice. “And what about falling asleep at the wheel-while you’re driving? I saw a car go off the Francistown Road once, just because of that. The driver had gone to sleep and the next thing he knew he had hit a tree and the car rolled over. You can go to sleep anywhere.”

“Driving is different,” said Mma Makutsi. “You do that for a long time. You become hot and drowsy. But when you jump out of an aeroplane, you are not likely to feel hot and drowsy. You will not go to sleep.”

“How do you know?” said the apprentice. “Have you jumped out of an aeroplane, Mma? Hah! You would have to watch your skirt! All the boys would be standing down below and whistling because your skirt would be over your head. Hah!”

Mma Makutsi shook her head. “It is no good talking to somebody like you,” she said. “And anyway, here’s Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s truck. We can ask him about this parachute business. We can find out if what the paper says is true.”

MR J.L.B. Matekoni parked his truck in the shade under the acacia tree beside the garage, making sure to leave enough room for Mma Ramotswe to park her tiny white van when she arrived. She would not arrive until nine o’clock, she had told him, because she was taking Motholeli to the doctor. Dr Moffat had telephoned to say that a specialist was visiting the hospital and that he had agreed to see Motholeli. “I do not think that he will be able to say much more than we have said,” Dr Moffat had warned. “But there’s no harm in his seeing her.” And Dr Moffat had been right; nothing new could be said.

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was pleased that he was getting to know the children better. He had always been slightly puzzled by children, and felt that he did not really understand them. There were children all round Botswana, of course, and nobody could be unaware of them, but he had been surprised at how these orphans thought about things. The boy, Puso, was a case in point. He was behaving very much better than he had in the past-and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was thankful for that-but he was still inclined to be on the moody side. Sometimes, when he was driving with Mr J.L.B. Matekoni in his truck, he would sit there, staring out of the window, and saying nothing at all.

“What are you thinking of?” Mr J.L.B. Matekoni would ask, and Puso would shake his head and reply, “Nothing.”

That could not be true. Nobody thought of nothing, but it was difficult to imagine what thoughts a boy of that age would have. What did boys do? Mr J.L.B. Matekoni tried to remember what he had done as a boy, but there was a curious gap, as if he had done nothing at all. This was strange, he thought. Mma Ramotswe remembered everything about her childhood and was always describing the details of events which had happened all those years ago. But when he tried to do that, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni could not even remember the names of the other boys in his class, apart from one or two very close friends with whom he had kept in touch. And it was the same with the initiation school, when all the boys were sent off to be inducted into the traditions of men. That was a great moment in your life, and you were meant to remember it, but he had only the vaguest memories.

Engines were different, of course. Although his memory for people’s names and for people themselves was not terribly good, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni remembered virtually every engine that he had ever handled, from the large and loyal diesels which he had learned to deal with during his apprenticeship to the clinically efficient, and characterless, motors of modern cars. And not only did he remember the distinguished engines-such as that which powered the British High Commissioner’s car-but he also remembered their more modest brothers, such as that which drove the only NSU Prinz which he had ever seen on the roads of Botswana; a humble car, indeed, which looked the same from the front or the back and which had an engine very like the motor on Mma Ramotswe’s sewing machine. All of these engines were like old friends to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni-old friends with all the individual quirks which old friends inevitably had, but which were so comfortable and reassuring.

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni got out of his truck and stretched his limbs. He had a busy day ahead of him, with four cars booked in for a routine service, and another which would require the replacement of the servo system on its brakes. This was a tricky procedure, because it was difficult to get at in the first place, and then, when one got there, it was very easy to replace incorrectly. The problem, as Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had explained to the apprentices on numerous occasions, was that the ends of the brake pipes were flared and one had to put a small nut into these flared ends. This nut allowed you to connect the servo mechanism to the pipes, but, and this was the real danger, if you cross-threaded the nuts you would get a leak. And if you avoided this danger, but if you were too rough, then you could twist a brake pipe. That was a terrible thing to do, as it meant that you had to replace the entire brake pipe, and these pipes, as everybody knew, ran through the body of the car like arteries. The apprentices had caused both of these disasters in the past, and he had been obliged to spend almost a whole day sorting things out. Now he no longer trusted them to do it. They could watch if they wished, but they would not be allowed to touch. This was the main problem with the apprentices; they had the necessary theoretical knowledge, or some of it, but so often they were slipshod in the way they finished a job-as if they had become bored with it-and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni knew that you could never be slipshod when it came to brake pipes.

He went into the garage and, hearing voices from the detective agency, he knocked on the door and looked in to see Mma Makutsi handing Charlie a folded-up newspaper. They turned and stared at him.

“Here’s the Boss,” said the apprentice. “Here’s the brave man himself.”

“The hero,” echoed Mma Makutsi, smiling.

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni frowned. “What is this?” he asked. “Why are you calling me a brave man?”

“Not just us,” said the apprentice, handing him the newspaper. “The whole town will be calling you brave now.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni took the newspaper. It can only be one thing, he thought, and as his eye fell upon the article his fears were confirmed. He stood there, his hands shaking slightly as he held the offending newspaper, the dismay mounting within him. This was Mma Potokwane’s doing. Nobody else could have told the newspaper about the parachute jump, as he had spoken to nobody about it. She had no right to do this, he thought. She had no right at all.

“Is it true?” asked Mma Makutsi. “Did you really say that you would jump out of an aeroplane?”

“Of course he did,” exclaimed the apprentice. “The Boss is a brave man.”

“Well,” began Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, “Mma Potokwane said to me that I should and then…”

“Oh!” said Mma Makutsi, clapping her hands with delight. “So it is true then! This is very exciting. I will sponsor you, Rra. Yes, I will sponsor you up to thirty pula!”

“Why do you say ‘up to’?” asked the apprentice.

“Because that’s what these sponsorship forms normally say,” said Mma Makutsi. “You put down a maximum amount.”

“But that’s only because when a person is doing something like a sponsored walk they may not reach the end,” said the apprentice. “In the case of a parachute jump, the person you have sponsored usually reaches the end-one way or the other.” He laughed at his observation, but Mr J.L.B. Matekoni merely stared at him.