Their eyes did not meet. Mma Makutsi, however, immediately recognised Phuti Radiphuti's car and gave a start. She sat bolt upright, face close to the window, taking in first the car, then Phuti at the wheel, and then, in an awful, heart-stopping moment, the figure of Violet Sephotho, false claimant of eighty per cent, writer of anonymous letters, Jezebel.

A TUESDAY MORNING, thought Mma Ramotswe, is a good day on which to start work on a case. This was largely because of the positioning of Tuesday: Monday was a difficult day for no other reason than that it was Monday the start of another week, with the prospect of another weekend as distant as it ever could be. Wednesday was halfway through the week, and a day on which, for some reason, there always seemed to be rather too much to do. By Thursday one was getting tired, and then on Friday, with the end in sight, one was in no mood to begin anything. That left Tuesday, which it now was; the day on which Mma Ramotswe found herself contemplating afresh the list of names of football players and deciding which of them to investigate first.

She glanced across the room at Mma Makutsi, who was sitting stiffly at her desk, in a way which Mma Ramotswe recognised as her bad-day posture. Mma Makutsi was like that; she could be moody, particularly when there was some problem on the domestic front. Certainly, there was something worrying her, but Mma Ramotswe knew better than to raise it with her at this point. It would come out later in the day, and she would be able to comfort or reassure her. Then the mood would lighten and everything would return to normal. That was what normally happened.

The Molofololo case was difficult not only because of the strange world of football with which it was concerned, but also because of the sheer challenge of looking into the private lives of quite so many men. She would have to delegate, she decided. Mma Makutsi could take on some of the names, Mr. Polopetsi- if things were quiet in the garage-could be allocated a few of the others, and she would do the rest. Now, looking at the list, she picked up a pencil and divided the names. The drivers of the Mercedes-Benzes, each of whom had a tick against his name, were, according to Mr. Polopetsi, unlikely candidates; they could be left to Mr. Polopetsi himself in that case, as he was the least experienced of the three of them. She then divided the remaining names at random between Mma Makutsi and herself.

She had decided that the best approach was to speak directly to the players. Mr. Molofololo's suggestion that she pose as a masseuse was not practical, for a number of reasons. Prominent amongst these was that Mma Ramotswe had no idea of how to perform a massage, and she simply did not fancy pounding and manipulating the limbs of these muscly football players. She might pull the wrong way and make matters worse; she might tickle them inadvertently; anything could happen. No, that was not a good idea; far better to be transparent and to tell the players that she had been asked by Mr. Molofololo to talk to everybody to find out what was going wrong. That had the benefit of being true, but it also gave people the chance to do what they liked to do best-which was to talk. Much as Mma Ramotswe admired Clovis Andersen's The Principles of Private Detection, it had to be said that this was one matter on which she felt she knew better than Mr. Andersen himself. Nowhere in that great book did the author recommend the practice that Mma Ramotswe had found to be the strongest weapon in the private detective's armoury- that of asking people directly about something. That always worked, she found; always. When in doubt, ask somebody; it was as simple as that.

She looked at the list of names and the addresses beside them. She shook her head over the ridiculous football nicknames, smiling, though; men will be boys, she thought, especially when it comes to sporting matters. That was when men forgot their real age and went back to being ten or whenever it was that they were at their happiest. We all have a time, thought Mma Ramotswe- a time when the world was at its most exciting for us. Usually that time is somewhere in childhood, in that faded, half-remembered land that we all once dwelled in; that time of freshness and hope. For me it was… she stopped, and thought of Mochudi and the house she had lived in as a girl. And she saw her father too, the late Obed Ramotswe, with his battered old hat that people laughed at but he loved so much. That was when I was happiest, she thought. Not that she was unhappy now-she was very happy; happy with her business, with her husband, with her tiny white… No, she was unhappy about that, but best not to think about it. Think of football instead and… Her eye moved down the list and came to Big Man Tafa. She would start there because she knew the road where he lived and also because she thought it would be a good idea to start with the goalkeeper. She remembered hearing people talking about him when they came out of the Stadium. Somebody had made a remark about his having been on the wrong side of the goal at the critical moment; not that she would have noticed that herself, but it was clearly obvious enough for somebody to remark on it-somebody who knew what he was talking about, as most people who attended football matches seemed to. There had been a lot of advice given to the players by the crowd; it had been a very well-informed crowd, Mma Ramotswe thought.

She looked across the room at Mma Makutsi. “I am going to go to speak to one of these football people,” she announced. “I have divided the names on this list, and you might like to talk to some of them too.”

Mma Makutsi barely looked up from her desk. “I do not see what is to be gained by talking to these people,” she muttered. “They only like to talk about football.”

Mma Ramotswe was surprised at the degree of grumpiness in this answer, but she was patient. “That's what we need to talk about in this case,” she said mildly. “It is about football, you know.”

Mma Makutsi pouted. “We will never find out anything from them,” she said. “We won't have the faintest idea what they are talking about, Mma. Goals and lines and tackles and things like that. What is all of that about, Mma Ramotswe? That's what I ask you. What is that all about? What is this offside business? You hear men talking about it all the time. So-and-so was offside. No, he wasn't. Yes, he was. That sort of thing. What is the difference between that sort of language and Double-Zulu, Mma? That is the question.”

Mma Ramotswe looked at her assistant in astonishment. “Double-Zulu, Mma? What language is that?”

Mma Makutsi waved a hand in the direction of the border. “Something they speak somewhere over there. It is more difficult than Zulu. Twice as difficult. You cannot understand it. Nobody can.”

“Is there something worrying you, Mma?” asked Mma Ramotswe. “You can speak to me about it-you know that.”

Mma Makutsi looked up now, her large glasses catching the sunlight slanting in through the small window behind Mma Ramotswe's desk; the lenses flashed like the eyes of an animal caught at night in the beam of a torch. “Why do you think I am worried?” she snapped. “I am sitting here working and you are talking about football, Mma. Forgive me, Mma, but it is not easy to work if somebody is talking about football all the time.”

Mma Ramotswe sighed. “I'm sorry, Mma. I will try not to disturb you, but if you are unhappy, then please talk to me. It is not easy to be unhappy all by yourself, you know. It is easier if…”

She did not finish. Mma Makutsi had taken off her glasses and sunk her head in her hands. “Oh, I am very unhappy, Mma,” she sobbed. “And I am sorry that I have been accusing you of talking about football. You were not talking about football-it's just that I am a very unhappy lady, Mma.”