The Reverend looked down at the ground, which, in her experience, was where people usually looked if they felt truly sorry. The shamelessly unrepentant, she found, always looked up at the sky.

"I know I should have told them. God will punish me for it. But I was worried that I would be blamed for poor Peter's accident and I thought they would take me to court. They might make me pay damages for it, and that would drive the Church into bankruptcy and put a stop to God's work." He paused. "Do you understand why I kept quiet, and told all the flock not to say anything?"

Mma Ramotswe nodded, and reached out to touch the Reverend gently on the arm.

"I do not think that what you did was bad," she said. "I'm sure that God wanted you to continue and He will not be angry. It was not your fault."

The Reverend raised his eyes and smiled.

"Those are kind words, my sister. Thank you."

THAT AFTERNOON, Mma Ramotswe asked her neighbour if she could borrow one of his dogs. He had a pack of five, and she hated every one of them for their incessant barking. These dogs barked in the morning, as if they were roosters, and at night, when the moon rose in the sky. They barked at crows, and at hammerkops; they barked at passersby; and they sometimes barked just because they had got too hot.

"I need a dog to help me on one of my cases," she explained. "I'll bring him back safe and sound."

The neighbour was flattered to have been asked.

"I'll give you this dog here," he said. "It's the senior dog, and he has a very good nose. He will make a good detective dog."

Mma Ramotswe took the dog warily. It was a large yellow creature, with a curious, offensive smell. That night, just after sunset, she put it in the back of her van, tying its neck to a handle with a piece of string. Then she set off down the track that led to the river, her headlights picking out the shapes of the thorn trees and the anthills in the darkness. In a strange way, she felt glad of the company of the dog, unpleasant though it was.

Now, beside the pool in the river, she took a thick stake from the van and drove it into the soft ground near the water's edge. Then she fetched the dog, led it down to the pool, and tied its string firmly to the stake. From a bag she had with her, she took out a large bone and put it in front of the yellow dog's nose. The animal gave a grunt of pleasure and immediately settled down to gnaw the bone.

Mma Ramotswe waited just a few yards away, a blanket tucked round her legs to keep off the mosquitoes and her old rifle over her knees. She knew it could be a long wait, and she hoped that she would not go to sleep. If she did, though, she was sure that the dog would wake her up when the time came. Two hours passed. The mosquitoes were bad, and her skin itched, but this was work, and she never complained when she was working. Then, suddenly, there came a growling noise from the dog. Mma Ramotswe strained her eyes in the darkness. She could just make out the shape of the dog, and she could see that it was standing now, looking towards the water. The dog growled again, and gave a bark; then it was silent once more. Mma Ramotswe tossed the blanket off her knees and picked up the powerful torch at her side. Just a little bit longer, she thought.

There was a noise from the water's edge, and Mma Ramotswe knew now that it was time to switch on her torch. As the beam came on, she saw, just at the edge of the water, its head turned towards the cowering dog, a large crocodile.

The crocodile was totally unconcerned by the light, which it probably took for the moon. Its eyes were fixed on the dog, and it was edging slowly towards its quarry. Mma Ramotswe raised the rifle to her shoulder and saw the side of the crocodile's head framed perfectly in her sights. She pulled the trigger.

When the bullet struck the crocodile, it gave a great leap, a somersault in fact, and landed on its back, half in the water, half out. For a moment or two it twitched and then was still. It had been a perfectly placed shot.

Mma Ramotswe noticed that she was trembling as she put the rifle down. Her Daddy had taught her to shoot, and he had done it well, but she did not like to shoot animals, especially crocodiles. They were bad luck, these creatures, but duty had to be done. And what was it doing there anyway? These creatures were not meant to be in the Notwane River; it must have wandered for miles overland, or swum up in the flood waters from the Limpopo itself. Poor crocodile-this was the end of its adventure.

She took a knife and slit through the creature's belly. The leather was soft, and the stomach was soon exposed and its contents revealed. Inside there were pebbles, which the crocodile used for digesting its food, and several pieces of foul-smelling fish. But it was not this that interested her; she was more interested in the undigested bangles and rings and wrist-watch she found. These were corroded, and one or two of them were encrusted, but they stood out amongst the stomach contents, each of them the evidence of the crocodile's sinister appetites.

"IS THIS your husband's property?" she asked Mma Malatsi, handing her the wristwatch she had claimed from the crocodile's stomach.

Mma Malatsi took the watch and looked at it. Mma Ramotswe grimaced; she hated moments like this, when she had no choice but to be the bearer of bad news.

But Mma Malatsi was extraordinarily calm. "Well at least I know that he's with the Lord," she said. "And that's much better than knowing that he's in the arms of some other woman, isn't it?"

Mma Ramotswe nodded. "I think it is," she said.

"Were you married, Mma?" asked Mma Malatsi. "Do you know what it is like to be married to a man?"

Mma Ramotswe looked out of the window. There was a thorn tree outside her window, but beyond that she could see the boulder-strewn hill.

"I had a husband," she said. "Once I had a husband. He played the trumpet. He made me unhappy and now I am glad that I no longer have a husband." She paused. "I'm sorry. I did not mean to be rude. You've lost your husband and you must be very sorry."

"A bit," said Mma Malatsi. "But I have lots to do."

THE BOY was eleven, and was small for his age. They had tried everything to get him to grow, but he was taking his time, and now, when you saw him, you would say that he was only eight or nine, rather than eleven. Not that it bothered him in the slightest; his father had said to him: I was a short boy too. Now I am a tall man. Look at me. That will happen to you. You just wait.

But secretly the parents feared that there was something wrong; that his spine was twisted, perhaps, and that this was preventing him from growing. When he was barely four, he had fallen out of a tree-he had been after birds' eggs-and had lain still for several minutes, the breath knocked out of him; until his grandmother had run wailing across the melon field and had lifted him up and carried him home, a shattered egg still clasped in his hand. He had recovered-or so they thought at the time-but his walk was different, they thought.

They had taken him to the clinic, where a nurse had looked at his eyes and into his mouth and had pronounced him healthy.

"Boys fall all the time. They hardly ever break anything."

The nurse placed her hands on the child's shoulders and twisted his torso.

"See. There is nothing wrong with him. Nothing. If he had broken anything, he would have cried out."

But years later, when he remained small, the mother thought of the fall and blamed herself for believing that nurse who was only good for doing bilharzia tests and checking for worms.