Trevor had smiled. “I do not think that this is going to happen in the near future, Mma Ramotswe,” he had replied. “Certainly not by next Tuesday, when the Botswana Mothers' Union meets. And, frankly, I don't think that we should worry too much about that. Our concern should be what is happening right now. There is plenty of work for love to do, you know.”

There is plenty of work for love to do. That was a wonderful way of putting it, and she had told him that this could be the best possible motto for anybody to have.

She finished her tea and began to walk back into the house. There is plenty of work for love to do. Yes. There was breakfast to be made, and letters to be answered, and the problems in clients' lives to be sorted out. There was quite enough to do without worrying about the sun consuming the earth. Yes, one should not worry too much, but then she looked at her van and thought: How long will I be able to keep you going? One more day? One more week? And then how are we going to say goodbye, after so many years? It would be like losing a best friend, a faithful companion- it would be every bit as hard as that.

Mma Ramotswe had an anxious moment when she turned the key in the van's ignition that morning, but it was an anxious moment that lasted just that-a moment. Obediently, and without making any suspicious noise, the engine started, and she began to drive off slowly. She breathed a sigh of relief; perhaps the problem really had been temporary-no more, as she had previously considered, than some piece of grit in the cogs that made up the gearbox or the… she could not think of the name of any of the other moving parts, but she knew that there were levers and springs and things that went up and down; any of those could have been half stuck. But as she began to drive down Zebra Drive, taking great care not to go too fast, the van resumed its protests. There was what sounded like a hiccup, and then the loud blast of a backfire, and following hard on that there was the familiar knocking sound. Her heart sank. The tiny white van was dying.

But just as soon as she reached this bleak conclusion, a way out presented itself to her. She would follow Dr. Moffat's advice. Fanwell, the younger of the two apprentices, was approachable and knew how to keep a secret. She would ask him to look at the van after work. She would drive him back to his house, and he could have a look at it there. Neither Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni nor Charlie need ever know about this visit, and if Fanwell could deal with the problem, then nobody need ever be any the wiser.

She had her chance to speak to the apprentice later that morning.

“I'm going to stretch my legs,” she said to Mma Makutsi. “I have been sitting down for too long.”

Mma Makutsi looked up from a letter she was reading. “That is a very good idea, Mma. If you do not stretch your legs, the blood sinks down to the feet and there is not enough for the brain. That is why some people are so stupid. They are the ones who have too much blood in their feet.”

Mma Ramotswe stared at her assistant. “That is an interesting theory, Mma. But I am not sure that it is quite true. I know some very clever people who sit down all the time. Look at them up at the University of Botswana. They spend most of the time sitting down, but they are very clever. They clearly have enough blood for their brains. No, Mma, I don't think that has anything to do with it.”

Mma Makutsi had pouted. “You should not argue with science, Mma,” she muttered. “Many people have made that mistake.” It had looked for a moment as if she was going to say something else, but she did not. So Mma Ramotswe left the office and made her way round to the front of the garage.

The two apprentices were standing underneath a car that had been raised for inspection. Charlie was pointing at something with a screwdriver, and Fanwell was peering up into the undercarriage of the car, a region of pipes and cables not unlike the intestines of a living creature, and as vulnerable, she thought with a shudder.

Fanwell turned to look at Mma Ramotswe, and she beckoned him discreetly to join her.

“Will you come for a little walk with me?” she said. “Charlie can take care of that car.” It would be a short walk, she thought, as she still had her blister, even though it had stopped throbbing.

Fanwell glanced over to Charlie, who nodded to him. Mma Ramotswe occasionally asked the apprentices to run errands for her, and he imagined that this was what she wanted of him.

They walked away from the garage towards the piece of scrubland that lay immediately behind the building. This was the edge of the town, half bush, half suburb, where cattle sometimes wandered, bringing with them their sounds of the true countryside, the sound of cattle bells. Here hornbills might perch on branches and contemplate the bustle of the Tlokweng Road before flying away again, in long swooping curves that led from tree to tree. Here small gusts of wind, the sort of wind that came from nowhere in particular, might briefly blow scraps of paper or the occasional plastic bag, lifting these bits of detritus half-heartedly before dropping them again and moving on. Here paths would begin and lead off into the deeper bush before disappearing altogether at the foot of the hills to the south of the town.

“I wanted to talk to you, Fanwell,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I wanted to ask you a favour.”

The young man looked at her nervously and then glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the garage. He was not as confident as the older apprentice, and he usually relied on Charlie to answer for both of them.

“Don't worry,” soothed Mma Ramotswe. “It's not a big favour. Or, maybe it is a bit big. Not too big, but a bit big.”

“I will always help you, Mma,” said Fanwell uncertainly. “You can ask me. I will do my best.”

Mma Ramotswe touched him gently on the forearm. “Thank you, Fanwell. It is my van. I need you to look at my van.”

They stopped walking. The apprentice looked at her in puzzlement. “Your van?”

“My van is very ill,” said Mma Ramotswe. “There is something very badly wrong with it.”

Fanwell thought for a moment. “Have you spoken to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni about it? He is the man, Mma. There is nothing that he cannot fix.”

Mma Ramotswe sighed. He was right to say that there was nothing that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni could not fix, but that was not the same thing as saying that there was nothing that he would not fix. There comes a time in the life of machinery, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was fond of saying, when it is right to say goodbye. That had happened eventually with the water pump at the orphan farm; he had insisted that he could no longer fix the ancient machine, dating back to the days of the Bechuanaland Protectorate. Mma Ramotswe was in no doubt that this is what he thought of the tiny white van. In his view, its time had clearly come.

She explained the difficulty to Fanwell. “So,” she said, “if I am to keep my van, then I must have it fixed by somebody else. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni would just get rid of it.”

“But he would see me,” the apprentice protested. “If I took your van into the garage, he would see it and know what I was doing.”

“Of course he would,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That's why I would like you to take a look at it at home. At your place.”

Fanwell frowned. “But I haven't got the tools I need there. I haven't got an inspection pit. There is nothing.”

“Just look at it,” pleaded Mma Ramotswe. “Could you not just look at it? You wouldn't need many tools for that. A few spanners maybe. Nothing more.”

Fanwell scratched his head. “I don't know, Mma. I don't know…”

“I could drive you home,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Then you could look at it and let me know what you think. Maybe it is just a small thing, which you could fix very easily. I will pay you, of course.”