THE SUCCESS of the first case heartened Mma Ramotswe. She had now sent off for, and received, a manual on private detection and was going through it chapter by chapter, taking copious notes. She had made no mistakes in that first case, she thought. She had found out what information there was to be had by a simple process of listing the likely sources and seeking them out. That did not take a great deal of doing. Provided that one was methodical, there was hardly any way in which one could go wrong.

Then she had had a hunch about the crocodile and had followed it up. Again, the manual endorsed this as perfectly acceptable practice. "Don't disregard a hunch," it advised. "Hunches are another form of knowledge." Mma Ramotswe had liked that phrase and had mentioned it to Mma Makutsi. Her secretary had listened carefully, and then typed the sentence out on her typewriter and handed it to Mma Ramotswe.

Mma Makutsi was pleasant company and could type quite well. She had typed out a report which Mma Ramotswe had dictated on the Malatsi case and had typed out the bill for sending to Mma Malatsi. But apart from that she had not really been called on to do anything else and Mma Ramotswe wondered whether the business could really justify employing a secretary.

And yet one had to. What sort of private detective agency had no secretary? She would be a laughingstock without one, and clients-if there were really going to be any more, which was doubtful-could well be frightened away.

Mma Makutsi had the mail to open, of course. There was no mail for the first three days. On the fourth day, a catalogue was received, and a property tax demand, and on the fifth day a letter which was intended for the previous owner.

Then, at the beginning of the second week, she opened a white envelope dirty with finger marks and read the letter out to Mma Ramotswe.

Dear Mma Ramotswe,

I read about you in the newspaper and about how you have opened this big new agency down there in town. I am very proud for Botswana that we now have a person like you in this country.

I am the teacher at the small school at Katsana Village, thirty miles from Gaborone, which is near the place where I was born. I went to Teachers' College many years ago and I passed with a double distinction. My wife and I have two daughters and we have a son of eleven. This boy to which I am referring has recently vanished and has not been seen for two months.

We went to the police. They made a big search and asked questions everywhere. Nobody knew anything about our son. I took time off from the school and searched the land around our village. We have somekopjes not too far away and there are boulders and caves over there. I went into each one of those caves and looked into every crevice. But there was no sign of my son.

He was a boy who liked to wander, because he had a strong interest in nature. He was always collecting rocks and things like that. He knew a lot about the bush and he would never get into danger from stupidity. There are no leopards in these parts anymore and we are too far away from the Kalahari for lions to come.

I went everywhere, calling, calling, but my son never answered me. I looked in every well of every farmer and village nearby and asked them to check the water. But there was no sign of him.

How can a boy vanish off the face of the Earth like this? If I were not a Christian, I would say that some evil spirit had lifted him up and carried him off. But I know that things like that do not really happen.

I am not a wealthy man. I cannot afford the services of a private detective, but I ask you, Mma, in the name of Jesus Christ, to help me in one small way. Please, when you are making your enquiries about other things, and talking to people who might know what goes on, please ask them if they have heard anything about a boy called Thobiso, aged eleven years and four months, who is the son of the teacher at Katsana Village. Please just ask them, and if you hear anything at all, please address a note to the undersigned, myself, the teacher.

In God's name,

Ernest Molai Pakotati, Dip.Ed.

Mma Makutsi stopped reading and looked across the room at Mma Ramotswe. For a moment, neither spoke. Then Mma Ramotswe broke the silence.

"Do you know anything about this?" she asked. "Have you heard anything about a boy going missing?"

Mma Makutsi frowned. "I think so. I think there was something in the newspaper about a search for a boy. I think they thought he might have run away from home for some reason." Mma Ramotswe rose to her feet and took the letter from her secretary. She held it as one might hold an exhibit in court- gingerly, so as not to disturb the evidence. It felt to her as if the letter-a mere scrap of paper, so light in itself-was weighted with pain.

"I don't suppose there's much I can do," she said quietly. "Of course I can keep my ears open. I can tell the poor daddy that, but what else can I do? He will know the bush around Katsana. He will know the people. I can't really do very much for him."

Mma Makutsi seemed relieved. "No," she said. "We can't help that poor man."

A letter was dictated by Mma Ramotswe, and Mma Makutsi typed it carefully into the typewriter. Then it was sealed in an envelope, a stamp stuck on the outside, and it was placed in the new red out-tray Mma Ramotswe had bought from the Botswana Book Centre. It was the second letter to leave the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, the first being Mma Malatsi's bill for two hundred and fifty pula-the bill on the top of which Mma Makutsi had typed: "Your late husband- the solving of the mystery of his death."

THAT EVENING, in the house in Zebra Drive, Mma Ramotswe prepared herself a meal of stew and pumpkin. She loved standing in the kitchen, stirring the pot, thinking over the events of the day, sipping at a large mug of bush tea which she balanced on the edge of the stove. Several things had happened that day, apart from the arrival of the letter. A man had come in with a query about a bad debt and she had reluctantly agreed to help him recover it. She was not sure whether this was the sort of thing which a private detective should do-there was nothing in the manual about it-but he was persistent and she found it difficult to refuse. Then there had been a visit from a woman who was concerned about her husband.

"He comes home smelling of perfume," she said, "And smiling too. Why would a man come home smelling of perfume and smiling?"

"Perhaps he is seeing another woman," ventured Mma Ramotswe.

The woman had looked at her aghast.

"Do you think he would do that? My husband?"

They had discussed the situation and it was agreed that the woman would tackle her husband on the subject.

"It's possible that there is another explanation," said Mma Ramotswe reassuringly.

"Such as?"

"Well…"

"Many men wear perfume these days," offered Mma Makutsi. "They think it makes them smell good. You know how men smell."

The client had turned in her chair and stared at Mma Makutsi.

"My husband does not smell," she said. "He is a very clean man."

Mma Ramotswe had thrown Mma Makutsi a warning look. She would have to have a word with her about keeping out of the way when clients were there.

But whatever else had happened that day, her thoughts kept returning to the teacher's letter and the story of the missing boy. How the poor man must have fretted-and the mother, too. He did not say anything about a mother, but there must have been one, or a grandmother of course. What thoughts would have been in their minds as each hour went past with no sign of the boy, and all the time he could be in danger, stuck in an old mine shaft, perhaps, too hoarse to cry out anymore while rescuers beat about above him. Or stolen perhaps-whisked away by somebody in the night. What cruel heart could do such a thing to an innocent child? How could anybody resist the boy's cries as he begged to be taken home? That such things could happen right there, in Botswana of all places, made her shiver with dread.