"Stolen?" said Precious.

The cousin's husband shook his head. He regarded himself as a model employer-a paternalist, yes, but that is what the men wanted, was it not? He could not believe that any of his employees would cheat him. How could they, when he was so good to them and did so much for them?

Precious showed him how the money had been taken, and they jointly pieced together how it had been moved out of the right account into another one, and had then eventually vanished altogether. Only one of the clerks had access to these funds, so it must have been him; there could be no other explanation. She did not see the confrontation, but heard it from the other room. The clerk was indignant, shouting his denial at the top of his voice. Then there was silence for a moment, and the slamming of a door.

This was her first case. This was the beginning of the career of Mma Ramotswe.

The Arrival of Note Mokoti

There were four years of working in the bus office. The cousin and her husband became accustomed to her presence and began to call her their daughter. She did not mind this; they were her people, and she loved them. She loved the cousin, even if she still treated her as a child and scolded her publicly. She loved the cousin's husband, with his sad, scarred face andhis large, mechanic's hands. She loved the house, and her room with its yellow curtains. It was a good life that she had made for herself.

Every weekend she travelled up to Mochudi on one of the cousin's husband's buses and visited her father. He would be waiting outside the house, sitting on his stool, and she would curtsey before him, in the old way, and clap her hands.

Then they would eat together, sitting in the shade of the lean-to verandah which he had erected to the side of the house. She would tell him about the week's activity in the bus office and he would take in every detail, asking for names, which he would link into elaborate genealogies. Everybody was related in some way; there was nobody who could not be fitted into the far-flung corners of family.

It was the same with cattle. Cattle had their families, and after she had finished speaking, he would tell her the cattle news. Although he rarely went out to the cattle post, he had reports every week and he could run the lives of the cattle through the herd-boys. He had an eye for cattle, an uncanny ability to detect traits in calves that would blossom in maturity. He could tell, at a glance, whether a calf which seemed puny, and which was therefore cheap, could be brought on and fattened. And he backed this judgement, and bought such animals, and made them into fine, butterfat cattle (if the rains were good).

He said that people were like their cattle. Thin, wretched cattle had thin, wretched owners. Listless cattle-cattle which wandered aimlessly-had owners whose lives lacked focus. And dishonest people, he maintained, had dishonest cattle-cattle which would cheat other cattle of food or which would try to insinuate themselves into the herds of others.

Obed Ramotswe was a severe judge-of men and cattle- and she found herself thinking: what will he say when he finds out about Note Mokoti?

SHE HAD met Note Mokoti on a bus on the way back from Mochudi. He was travelling down from Francistown and was sitting in the front, his trumpet case on the seat beside him. She could not help but notice him in his red shirt and seersucker trousers; nor fail to see the high cheekbones and the arched eyebrows. It was a proud face, the face of a man used to being looked at and appreciated, and she dropped her eyes immediately. She would not want him to think she was looking at him, even if she continued to glance at him from her seat. Who was this man? A musician, with that case beside him; a clever person from the University perhaps?

The bus stopped in Gaborone before going south on the road to Lobatse. She stayed in her seat, and saw him get up. He stood up, straightened the crease of his trousers, and then turned and looked down the bus. She felt her heart jump; he had looked at her; no, he had not, he was looking out of the window.

Suddenly, without thinking, she got to her feet and took her bag down from the rack. She would get off, not because she had anything to do in Gaborone, but because she wanted to see what he did. He had left the bus now and she hurried, muttering a quick explanation to the driver, one of her cousin's husband's men. Out in the crowd, out in the late afternoon sunlight, redolent of dust and hot travellers, she looked about her and saw him, standing not far away. He had bought a roast mealie from a hawker, and was eating it now, making linesdown the cob. She felt that unsettling sensation again and she stopped where she stood, as if she were a stranger who was uncertain where to go.

He was looking at her, and she turned away flustered. Had he seen her watching him? Perhaps. She looked up again, quickly glancing in his direction, and he smiled at her this time and raised his eyebrows. Then, tossing the mealie cob away, he picked up the trumpet case and walked over towards her. She was frozen, unable to walk away, mesmerised like prey before a snake.

"I saw you on that bus," he said. "I thought I had seen you before. But I haven't."

She looked down at the ground.

"I have never seen you," she said. "Ever."

He smiled. He was not frightening, she thought, and some of her awkwardness left her.

"You see most people in this country once or twice," he said. "There are no strangers."

She nodded. "That is true."

There was a silence. Then he pointed to the case at his feet.

"This is a trumpet, you know. I am a musician."

She looked at the case. It had a sticker on it; a picture of a man playing a guitar.

"Do you like music?" he asked. "Jazz? Quella?"

She looked up, and saw that he was still smiling at her.

"Yes. I like music."

"I play in a band," he said. "We play in the bar at the President Hotel. You could come and listen. I am going there now."

They walked to the bar, which was only ten minutes or so from the bus stop. He bought her a drink and sat her at a table at the back, a table with one seat at it to discourage others.

Then he played, and she listened, overcome by the sliding, slippery music, and proud that she knew this man, that she was his guest. The drink was strange and bitter; she did not like the taste of alcohol, but drinking was what you did in bars and she was concerned that she would seem out of place or too young and people would notice her.

Afterwards, when the band had its break, he came to join her, and she saw that his brow was glistening with the effort of playing.

"I'm not playing well today," he said. "There are some days when you can and some days when you can't." "I thought you were very good. You played well." "I don't think so. I can play better. There are days when the trumpet just talks to me. I don't have to do anything then."

She saw that people were looking at them, and that one or two women were staring at her critically. They wanted to be where she was, she could tell. They wanted to be with Note.

He put her on the late bus after they had left the bar, and stood and waved to her as the bus drew away. She waved back and closed her eyes. She had a boyfriend now,a jazz musician, and she would be seeing him again, at his request, the following Friday night, when they were playing at a braaivleis at the Gaborone Club. Members of the band, he said, always took their girlfriends, and she would meet some interesting people there, good-quality people, people she would not normally meet. And that is where Note Mokoti proposed to Precious Ramotswe and where she accepted him, in a curious sort of way, without saying anything. It was after the band had finished and they were sitting in the darkness, away from the noise of the drinkers in the bar. He said: "I want to get marriedsoon and I want to get married to you. You are a nice girl who will do very well for a wife."