"Of course," said Billy Pilani quickly. "Of course."

"And Billy I want you to forget you're a policeman while all this is going on. There's not going to be any arrest for you."

"Not even a small one?" asked Billy in a disappointed tone.

"Not even that."

BILLY PILANI telephoned the following day.

"I've got the details from our list of stolen vehicles," he said. "I've spoken to the insurance company, who've already paid out. So they'd be very happy to get the car back. They can send one of their men over the border to pick it up."

"Good," said Mma Ramotswe. "They are to be in the African Mall in Gaborone at seven o'clock in the morning next Tuesday, with the number plates."

Everything was agreed, and at five o'clock on the Tuesday morning, Mma Ramotswe crept into the yard of the Pekwane house and found, as she had been expecting, the keys of the Mercedes-Benz lying on the ground outside the bedroom window, where Mma Pekwane had tossed them the previous night. She had been assured by Mma Pekwane that her husband was a sound sleeper and that he never woke up until Radio Botswana broadcast the sound of cowbells at six.

He did not hear her start the car and drive out onto the road, and indeed it was not until almost eight o'clock that he noticed that his Mercedes-Benz was stolen.

"Call the police," shouted Mma Pekwane. "Quick, call the police!"

She noticed that her husband was hesitating.

"Maybe later," he said. "In the meantime, I think I shall look for it myself."

She looked him directly in the eye, and for a moment she saw him flinch. He's guilty, she thought. I was right all along. Of course he can't go to the police and tell them that his stolen car has been stolen.

She saw Mma Ramotswe later that day and thanked her.

"You've made me feel much better," she said. "I shall now be able to sleep at night without feeling guilty for my husband."

"I'm very pleased," said Mma Ramotswe. "And maybe he's learned a lesson too. A very interesting lesson."

"What would that be?" asked Mma Pekwane.

"That lightning always strikes in the same place twice," said Mma Ramotswe. "Whatever people say to the contrary."

THE HOUSE had been built in 1968, when the town inched out from the shops and the Government Buildings. It was on a corner site, which was not always a good thing, as people would sometimes stand on that corner, under the thorn trees that grew there, and spit into her garden, or throw their rubbish over her fence. At first, when she saw them doing that, she would shout from the window, or bang a dustbin lid at them, but they seemed to have no shame, these people, and they just laughed. So she gave up, and the young man who did her garden for her every third day would just pick up the rubbish and put it away. That was the only problem with that house. For the rest, Mma Ramotswe was fiercely proud of it, and daily reflected on her good fortune in being able to buy it when she did, just before house prices went so high that honest people could no longer pay them.

The yard was a large one, almost two-thirds of an acre, and it was well endowed with trees and shrubs. The trees were nothing special-thorn trees for the most part-but they gave good shade, and they never died if the rains were bad. Then there were the purple bougainvillaeas which had been enthusiastically planted by the previous owners, and which had almost taken over by the time Mma Ramotswe came. She had to cut these back, to give space for her pawpaws and her pumpkins.

At the front of the house there was a verandah, which was her favourite place, and which was where she liked to sit in the mornings, when the sun rose, or in the evenings, before the mosquitoes came out. She had extended it by placing an awning of shade netting supported by rough-hewn poles. This filtered out many of the rays of the sun and allowed plants to grow in the green light it created. There she had elephant-ear and ferns, which she watered daily, and which made a lush patch of green against the brown earth.

Behind the verandah was the living room, the largest room in the house, with its big window that gave out onto what had once been a lawn. There was a fireplace here, too large for the room, but a matter of pride for Mma Ramotswe. On the mantelpiece she had placed her special china, her Queen Elizabeth II teacup and her commemoration plate with the picture of Sir Seretse Khama, President,Kgosi of the Bangwato people, Statesman. He smiled at her from the plate, and it was as if he gave a blessing, as if he knew. As did the Queen, for she loved Botswana too, and understood.

But in pride of place was the photograph of her Daddy, taken just before his sixtieth birthday. He was wearing the suit which he had bought in Bulawayo on his visit to his cousin there, and he was smiling, although she knew that by then he was in pain. Mma Ramotswe was a realist, who inhabited the present, but one nostalgic thought she allowed herself, one indulgence, was to imagine her Daddy walking through the door and greeting her again, and smiling at her, and saying: "My Precious! You have done well! I am proud of you!" And she imagined driving him round Gaborone in her tiny white van and showing him the progress that had been made, and she smiled at the pride he would have felt. But she could not allow herself to think like this too often, for it ended in tears, for all that was passed, and for all the love that she had within her.

The kitchen was cheerful. The cement floor, sealed and polished with red floor paint, was kept shining by Mma Ramotswe's maid, Rose, who had been with her for five years. Rose had four children, by different fathers, who lived with her mother at Tlokweng. She worked for Mma Ramotswe, and did knitting for a knitting cooperative, and brought her children up with the little money that there was. The oldest boy was a carpenter now, and was giving his mother money, which helped, but the little ones were always needing shoes and new trousers, and one of them could not breathe well and needed an inhaler. But Rose still sang, and this was how Mma Ramotswe knew she had arrived in the morning, as the snatches of song came drifting in from the kitchen.

HAPPINESS? MMA Ramotswe was happy enough. With her detective agency and her house in Zebra Drive, she had more than most, and was aware of it. She was also aware of how things had changed. When she had been married to Note Mokoti she had been conscious of a deep, overwhelming unhappiness that followed her around like a black dog. That had gone now.

If she had listened to her father, if she had listened to the cousin's husband, she would never have married Note and the years of unhappiness would never have occurred. But they did, because she was headstrong, as everybody is at the age of twenty, and when we simply cannot see, however much we may think we can. The world is full of twenty-year-olds, she thought, all of them blind.

Obed Ramotswe had never taken to Note, and had told her that, directly. But she had responded by crying and by saying that he was the only man she would ever find and that he would make her happy.

"He will not," said Obed. "That man will hit you. He will use you in all sorts of ways. He thinks only of himself and what he wants. I can tell, because I have been in the mines and you see all sorts of men there. I have seen men like that before."

She had shaken her head and rushed out of the room, and he had called out after her, a thin, pained, cry. She could hear it now, and it cut and cut at her. She had hurt the man who loved her more than any other, a good, trusting man who only wanted to protect her. If only one could undo the past; if one could go back and avoid the mistakes, make different choices…