“They all thought that this was a good idea, even the girl. ‘It will be very good to be at my own funeral,’ she said. ‘I shall hear the things that people say about me, and I shall find out who my friends are.’”

Mma Makutsi interrupted Mma Ramotswe at this point. “I am not so sure,” she said. “People do not always tell the truth at funerals. They say things that are not true because they feel guilty about the way they have treated the late person. I have seen that happen many times. In fact, if you listened to what was said at funerals, you would think that this is a land of saints.”

Mma Ramotswe agreed that this was largely true. “Yes,” she said. “That may be true, but people are trying their best, remember. And they may believe what they say.”

“All those lies?” asked Mma Makutsi. “They would believe all those lies?”

Mma Ramotswe pointed out that many people came to believe the lies they told. Politicians, she said, were a bit like that. “They get so used to telling lies that they begin to think that these lies are true. It is very sad.”

But that was not the point of the story, she reminded Mma Makutsi. “They all said that they would go ahead with the funeral, and it was also agreed that the girl should jump out of the coffin in the middle of the service and say that there was one present who had put a spell on her, and she knew who this person was. Then everybody was to look for the one who ran away, as surely such a person would run away in such circumstances.”

Mma Makutsi could barely wait for the outcome. “They carried her in, Mma? As if she was late?”

“Yes, they did that, Mma. It was all planned. They were going to sing a Setswana hymn-you know that one, ‘The Yoke Is Heavy upon Me’-and then the girl was to knock on the coffin. Then they would let her sit up and make her denunciation of the spell that had almost killed her. But there was a problem.”

Mma Makutsi drew in her breath. A problem? Perhaps the girl had suffocated and was now really dead. Perhaps she had gone to sleep and had to be woken up by her family. She raised these possibilities with Mma Ramotswe, who said no, it had not been like that. Then what had happened?

“The father said that they should open the coffin and check on the body. The reverend, who did not know about the plan, was surprised, but did not want to upset a man in mourning, and so he agreed. That is when they got a bad shock, Mma Makutsi. A bad, bad shock.”

Mma Makutsi covered her face with her hands. “I do not want to hear the end of this story, Mma Ramotswe. I am too frightened.”

“It was not the girl in there at all,” said Mma Ramotswe. “They had mixed up the coffins, and the girl had gone to another funeral altogether.”

Mma Makutsi let out a scream. “Oh, Mma! That is terrible. They might have already buried the other one.”

“Yes, they might have. But fortunately they did not.”

Mma Makutsi let out a sigh of relief. “That is a very happy result,” she said. “Real life very seldom works out that way.”

“Indeed,” said Mma Ramotswe. “If we believe that story. I am not sure…”

But Mma Makutsi appeared not to have heard. “It must have been very sad for the people at that funeral-the one where the late person started knocking on the coffin. Their hopes must have been raised that the dear brother or sister inside was no longer late. And then, when they discovered that it was another person, they must have been very upset.”

“I don’t think so,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Apparently that other person was a very difficult person who had made everybody’s life a misery. When they heard the knocking they were all very sad, I’m told. Then, when they realised it was somebody else, they were very relieved.”

Mma Makutsi laughed at this. It was difficult to imagine being glad over the loss of anybody; she would never rejoice in the demise of another, unless, of course… A list started to form in her mind. No. 1. Violet Sephotho. No. 2. Phuti’s No. 1 Aunty. No. 3… Was there a No. 3? She could not think of anybody. More minor punishments would do for the rest. And she should not make such a list, she told herself; it was unworthy of her, and she should stop. What if something dreadful were to happen either to Violet or to the aunt? She would be racked with guilt, no doubt, feeling that she had caused the misfortune, in spite of the fact that she knew quite well that one could never be the cause of anything unless you actually did something. And just thinking about something could never be said to be doing anything.

They needed to talk about something different, and so Mma Makutsi asked after the children. How was Puso doing at school, and was Motholeli still talking about becoming a mechanic?

“He is doing well,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He is not very good at writing but his arithmetic is good. His head is full of numbers, I think.”

“That is very useful,” said Mma Makutsi. “He can be a bookkeeper or an accountant.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled. It was difficult for her to imagine Puso grown up, and she saw for a moment an accountant in short trousers, a catapult sticking out of his pocket, and in his hand a jam sandwich of the sort that Puso loved to eat. But children changed, as adults did, and the image in her mind became one of a young man in a suit, with shiny shoes and a businesslike look to him. How everybody would have changed by then; how the country would have changed too.

“And Motholeli?” prompted Mma Makutsi.

“I think that she still wants to be a mechanic. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni talks to her about cars and she is always asking him about gearboxes and such things. There are not many girls who talk about engines, but she is one.”

“That will also be a very good thing,” said Mma Makutsi. “It means that there will be a Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors even in twenty years’ time, when you and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni are both late.”

Mma Ramotswe did a quick calculation in her head. “I do not think that either of us need be late by then, Mma,” she said. “We are not that old.”

Mma Makutsi looked doubtful. “Maybe not,” she admitted, rather reluctantly, thought Mma Ramotswe.

MANY HOURS and many stories later they reached Maun. It was early evening, and they saw in the distance the first lights of the town in the gathering dusk. There was something deeply reassuring about the sight. It was not simply that they were reaching the end of their long journey; the lights were comforting signs of human settlement in a great emptiness. To the south, under a sky that, as the evening approached, became an expanse of red, were the Makadikadi salt pans, a landscape of improbable whiteness that went on for a hundred miles, forever, it seemed, if one stood on their edge, a tiny human. Mma Ramotswe shivered: to stand on the verge of something so great and so empty seemed to be in danger of being swallowed up; she often felt that when she was in the wild places of her country. It would be so easy to become lost, to disappear, to find yourself alone in a wide slice of Africa, reduced to what you really were, a small and vulnerable creature among many other creatures.

The lights drew nearer. Now they were individual dwellings, dotted here and there amid the acacia scrub. A few had fires outside, small flickering points of orange seen through the trees. A truck, a figure, a set of headlights in the darkness; and then Maun itself, with its streets and lit windows, and its frontier air.

Mma Makutsi looked out of her window. “So this is the place,” she said. “So this is it.”

“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “We must find Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s cousin’s place now.”

That, as it happened, was not easy. They took directions from a man they saw standing at the side of the street, near one of the hotels. He sent them off into the night in entirely the wrong direction, or so they were told by the next person from whom they obtained guidance. He was more reliable, and they eventually found the house half an hour after they had arrived in the town.