"Because that boy's dead," said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, tracing an imaginary pattern in the air with his finger. "No animal took him, or at least no ordinary animal. A santawana maybe, a thokolosi. Oh yes."

Mma Ramotswe was silent. She imagined the father-the father of the dead boy, and for a brief moment she remembered that awful afternoon in Mochudi, at the hospital, when the nurse had come up to her, straightening her uniform, and she saw that the nurse was crying. To lose a child, like that, was something that could end one's world. One could never get back to how it was before. The stars went out. The moon disappeared. The birds became silent.

"Why do you say he's dead?" she asked. "He could have got lost and then…"

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni shook his head. "No," he said. "That boy would have been taken for witchcraft. He's dead now."

She put her empty mug down on the table. Outside, in the workshop, a wheel brace was dropped with a loud, clanging sound.

She glanced at her friend. This was a subject that one did not talk about. This was the one subject which would bring fear to the most resolute heart. This was the great taboo.

"How can you be sure?"

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni smiled. "Come on, now, Mma Ramotswe. You know as well as I do what goes on. We don't like to talk about it do we? It's the thing we Africans are most ashamed of. We know it happens but we pretend it doesn't. We know all right what happens to children who go missing. We know."

She looked up at him. Of course he was telling the truth, because he was a truthful, good man. And he was probably right-no matter how much everybody would like to think of other, innocent explanations as to what had happened to a missing boy, the most likely thing was exactly what Mr J.L.B. Matekoni said. The boy had been taken by a witch doctor and killed for medicine. Right there, in Botswana, in the late twentieth century, under that proud flag, in the midst of all that made Botswana a modern country, this thing had happened, this heart of darkness had thumped out like a drum. The little boy had been killed because some powerful person somewhere had commissioned the witch doctor to make strengthening medicine for him. She cast her eyes down.

"You may be right," she said. "That poor boy…" "Of course I'm right," said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. "And why do you think that poor man had to write that letter to you? It's because the police will be doing nothing to find out how and where it happened. Because they're scared. Every one of them. They're just as scared as I am and those two boys out there under that car are. Scared, Mma Ramotswe. Frightened for our lives. Every one of us-maybe even you."

MMA RAMOTSWE went to bed at ten that night, half an hour later than usual. She liked to lie in bed sometimes, with her reading lamp on, and read a magazine. Now she was tired, and the magazine kept slipping from her hands, defeating her struggles to keep awake.

She turned out the light and said her prayers, whispering the words although there was nobody in the house to hear her. It was always the same prayer, for the soul of her father, Obed, for Botswana and for rain that would make the crops grow and the cattle fat, and for her little baby, now safe in the arms of Jesus.

In the early hours of the morning she awoke in terror, her heartbeat irregular, her mouth dry. She sat up and reached for the light switch, but when she turned it on nothing happened. She pushed her sheet aside-there was no need for a blanket in the hot weather-and slipped off the bed.

The light in the corridor did not work either, nor that in the kitchen, where the moon made shadows and shapes on the floor. She looked out of the window, into the night. There were no lights anywhere; a power cut.

She opened the back door and stepped out into the yard in her bare feet. The town was in darkness, the trees obscure, indeterminate shapes, clumps of black.

"Mma Ramotswe!"

She stood where she was, frozen in terror. There was somebody in the yard, watching her. Somebody had whispered her name.

She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came. And it would be dangerous to speak, anyway. So she backed away, slowly, inch by inch, towards the kitchen door. Once inside, she slammed the door shut behind her and reached for the lock. As she turned the key the electricity came on and the kitchen was flooded with light. The fridge started to purr; a light from the cooker winked on and off at her: 3:04; 3:04

THERE WERE three quite exceptional houses in the country, and Mma Ramotswe felt some satisfaction that she had been invited to two of them. The best-known of these was Mokolodi, a rambling chateau-like building placed in the middle of the bush to the south of Gaborone. This house, which had a gatehouse with gates on which hornbills had been worked in iron, was probably the grandest establishment in the country, and was certainly rather more impressive than Phakadi House, to the north, which was rather too close to the sewage ponds for Mma Ramotswe's taste. This had its compensations, though, as the sewage ponds attracted a great variety of bird life, and from the verandah of Phakadi one could watch flights of flamingos landing on the murky green water. But you could not do this if the wind was in the wrong direction, which it often was.

The third house could only be suspected of being a house of distinction, as very few people were invited to enter it, and Gaborone as a whole had to rely on what could be seen of the house from the outside-which was not much, as it was surrounded by a high white wall-or on reports from those who were summoned into the house for some special purpose. These reports were unanimous in their praise for the sheer opulence of the interior.

"Like Buckingham Palace," said one woman who had been called to arrange flowers for some family occasion. "Only rather better. I think that the Queen lives a bit more simply than those people in there."

The people in question were the family of Mr Paliwalar Sundigar Patel, the owner of eight stores-five in Gaborone and three in Francistown -a hotel in Orapa, and a large outfitters in Lobatse. He was undoubtedly one of the wealthiest men in the country, if not the wealthiest, but amongst the Batswana this counted for little, as none of the money had gone into cattle, and money which was not invested in cattle, as everybody knew, was but dust in the mouth.

Mr Paliwalar Patel had come to Botswana in 1967, at the age of twenty-five. He had not had a great deal in his pocket then, but his father, a trader in a remote part of Zululand, had advanced him the money to buy his first shop in the African Mall. This had been a great success; Mr Patel bought goods for virtually nothing from traders in distress and then sold them on at minimal profit. Trade blossomed and shop was added to shop, all of them run on the same commercial philosophy. By his fiftieth birthday, he stopped expanding his empire, and concentrated on the improvement and education of his family. There were four children-a son, Wallace, twin daughters, Sandri and Pali, and the youngest, a daughter called Nandira. Wallace had been sent to an expensive boarding school in Zimbabwe, in order to satisfy Mr Patel's ambition that he become a gentleman. There he had learned to play cricket, and to be cruel. He had been admitted to dental school, after a large donation by Mr Patel, and had then returned to Durban, where he set up a practice in cosmetic dentistry. At some point he had shortened his name-"for convenience's sake"-and had become Mr Wallace Pate BDS (Natal).

Mr Patel had protested at the change. "Why are you now this Mr Wallace Pate BDS (Natal) may I ask? Why? You ashamed, or something? You think I'm just a Mr Paliwalar Patel BA (Failed) or something?"