“I don't think he was thinking of a joke,” said Puso solemnly. “He was smiling because the Township Rollers had scored a goal. I'm sure he was, Mma.”

Mma Ramotswe shrugged, as if to suggest that the matter was not very important. “Who was he, by the way? Did you see which player it was?”

Puso scratched his head. “I think it was Quickie Chitamba,” he said. “Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was another man who looked like Quickie.” He paused. “No, I don't think it was Quickie.”

“Oh well,” said Mma Ramotswe.

ON THE MONDAY following the Kalahari Swoopers' ignominious defeat by the Township Rollers, a new employee presented herself for work at Mr. Phuti Radiphuti's Double Comfort Furniture Shop. This was none other than Violet Sephotho, formerly an undistinguished student at the Botswana Secretarial College, where she definitely did not get the eighty per cent that she had claimed at her interview. It was the same Violet Sephotho whom Mma Makutsi had met again at the Botswana Academy of Dance and Movement, the Tuesday evening dance class at the President Hotel, where Violet, determined to belittle someone who had done so much better in the college exams, had shown herself at her most disparaging and condescending.

It was also the same Violet Sephotho with whom Mma Makutsi had subsequently crossed swords on two occasions. The first of these had been when Mma Makutsi had rather too hastily tendered her resignation to Mma Ramotswe and had gone to an employment agency to find another job, only to discover that the agency was run by Violet. This, of course, gave Violet the opportunity to make snide and cutting remarks about the harshness of the current employment climate to women who were not very prepossessing in their appearance-by which she meant Mma Makutsi herself-and to suggest that perhaps she should look for a job outside Gaborone, in a place like Lobatse, possibly, where standards were not so high. An unfashionable-looking person, she suggested, could find a job in Lobatse even if she could not do so in Gaborone.

Mma Makutsi had stormed out of that interview and had tried to forget about Violet Sephotho. In this she had succeeded until Violet had cropped up again as the writer, both she and Mma Ramotswe had suspected, of a series of anonymous letters of an insulting nature, some of which made reference to large glasses. That had resulted in a spectacular chase through the aisles of the supermarket at the River Walk shopping centre, and since then Violet had not been heard of or seen. And now here she was, turning up in the very heart of Mma Makutsi's camp, as a new employee-in the beds section-of the Double Comfort Furniture Shop.

Phuti was unaware of the full perfidy of his new employee. He had detected a certain coldness on his fiancée's part when he had mentioned that he had given Violet a job, but he had put this down to some old rivalry at the Botswana Secretarial College – a minor clash of personalities, perhaps-that would soon be forgotten. He had no idea, of course, that Violet had come to work in his shop with a very clear aim. Mma Makutsi, being a woman, had worked out what this aim was, whereas a man, particularly a trusting and rather innocent man like Phuti, would never suspect.

“So, Mma,” he said when Violet reported to the office early on Monday morning. “You are here in good time. It is only…” He looked at his watch. The shop opened at eight o'clock and it was barely half past seven.

Violet smiled at him. “I always like to be at work on time,” she said. “It is best to be completely ready when the first customers come. I have always thought that, Rra.”

Phuti nodded his approval. “That is the best attitude,” he said. “I have seen customers walk out of shops because the staff were not ready to assist them.”

“I cannot stand that sort of thing,” said Violet. “The customer is always right.”

Again Phuti indicated his approval. “That is rule number one in this establishment,” he said. “And I'm very glad that you know that, Mma.”

“Please call me Violet, Rra,” she said. “I would prefer that. It is more friendly, I think.”

“If you wish, Mma. I usually call members of my staff by their first names, if that is what they want.”

“I do want it, Rra. You can even call me Vi, if you wish. Some people who are very close to me call me that. It is short for Violet, you see.”

After Violet had signed the staff contract, Phuti accompanied her to the new beds section, where she was to preside as assistant manager. Then he began to show her the beds and to tell her about the relative merits of each of the ten or so models that they carried.

“Most of the beds we stock are double beds,” he said.

“That is nice,” said Violet. “That is less lonely. Who wants a single bed these days?”

Phuti frowned. “There is some demand,” he said. “Sometimes a person whose spouse is late, for example, might ask for a single bed. Or there are grandmothers. They like single beds if their husband is a bad snorer.”

Violet giggled. “I never snore,” she said.

Phuti said nothing. “And these beds over here,” he went on to explain. “They are the most expensive beds we have. They are what we call deluxe, first-class beds. They have very comfortable mattresses. Very soft. Very springy.”

“Very nice beds for a newly married couple,” said Violet. She lowered her eyes slightly as she spoke, in a manner suggestive of modesty, indeed suggestive in every sense. But Phuti saw only the modesty, and was impressed. He had wondered whether Violet was a bit forward, but this demure remark pointed to a nature quite in keeping with the ethos of the bed department of the Double Comfort Furniture Shop.

He showed her the desk where she would sit, and the filing system for customer information.

“I am very familiar with filing systems,” Violet said. “I studied them a lot at the Botswana Secretarial College -all different types of filing systems: alphabetical, numerical… and other types. All of them.”

Phuti smiled. “Ah, the Botswana Secretarial College! Of course, you know my fiancée there-you told me that. Grace.”

“Makutsi,” said Violet quickly, breaking into a smile. “Grace Makutsi. Of course, I knew her. We all knew her. She was very popular with everybody.”

“That is good to hear,” said Phuti. “It would not do to marry an unpopular lady, would it?”

Phuti was not particularly good at witty remarks, and this was about as witty as he became. But Violet showed her appreciation by bursting out laughing, which pleased him, as she suspected it would.

“Yes,” she said. “She was very popular with all the girls… and the boys too. Very popular with the boys.”

Phuti gave a start. He smiled, but the smile was a nervous one. “The boys too? But there were no boys, surely, at the Botswana Secretarial College, were there?”

Violet sat down at her desk and toyed with a ball-point pen. She did not look at Phuti as she spoke, but stared somewhere behind and beyond him, as if casting her mind back to the events of a distant, barely remembered past. “No, there were no boys at the college itself. But there were always boys at the gate, if you know what I mean.”

She glanced at Phuti before her gaze slid away again, off to that distant point. “There was a café near the gate, you see, and this was very popular. All the boys knew that at the end of classes the girls from the college would go to this café and sit around. So the boys always went there so that they could sit around with the girls and chat to them. We used to call it the dating shop. Hah! The dating shop. Those were the days, Rra.”

For a few moments Phuti said nothing. Then he cleared his throat and began to speak. His stutter, which now only came at moments of stress, emerged, but only slightly, like the top of a treacherous rock lurking under the surface of a river. “Di… di… did Grace go to this ca… café?”