“That is the House of Hope,” said Mr Bobologo. “You can park under the tree here. Carefully, Mma. You do not wish to hit the tree. Careful!”

“I have never hit a tree in my life,” retorted Mma Ramotswe. “But I have known many men who have hit trees, Rra. Some of those men are late now.”

“It may not have been their fault,” muttered Mr Bobologo.

“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe evenly. “It could have been the fault of the trees. That is always possible.”

She was incensed by his remark and struggled to contain her anger. Unfortunately, her battle with her righteous indignation overcame her judgment, and she hit the tree; not hard, but with enough of a jolt to make Mr Bobologo grab onto his seat once again.

“There,” he said, turning to her in triumph. “You have hit the tree, Mma.”

Mma Ramotswe turned off the engine and closed her eyes. Clovis Andersen, author of her professional vade mecum,The Principles of Private Detection, had advice which was appropriate to this occasion, and Mma Ramotswe now called it to mind.Never allow your personal feelings to cloud the issue, he had written.You may be seething with anger over something, but do not-and I repeat not-do not allow it to overcome your professional judgment. Keep your calm. That is the most important thing. And if you find it difficult, close your eyes and count to ten.

By the time she reached ten, Mr Bobologo had opened his door and was waiting for her outside. So Mma Ramotswe swallowed hard and joined him, following him up the short garden path that led to the doorway of an unexceptional white-washed house, of much the same sort as could be seen on any nearby street, and which from the road would never have been identified-without special knowledge-as a house of hope, or indeed of despair, or of anything else for that matter. It was just a house, and yet here it was, filled to the brim with bad girls.

“Here we are, Mma,” said Mr Bobologo as he approached the front door. “Take up hope all you who enter here. That is what we say, and one day we shall have it written above the door.”

Mma Ramotswe looked at the unprepossessing door. Her reservations about Mr Bobologo were growing, but she was not quite sure why this should be so. He was irritating, of course, but so were many people, and being irritating was not enough for him to be written off. No, there was something more than that. Was it smugness, or singularity of purpose? Perhaps that was it. It was always disconcerting to meet those who had become so obsessed with a single topic that they could not see their concerns in context. Such people were uncomfortable company purely because they lacked normal human balance, and this, she thought, might be the case with Mr Bobologo. And yet she had not been asked to find out whether Mr Bobologo was an interesting man, or even a nice man. She had been asked to find out whether he was after Mma Holonga’s money. That was a very specific question, and her feelings for Mr Bobologo had nothing to do with the answer to that question. So she would give him the benefit of the doubt, and keep her personal opinions to herself. She herself would never marry Mr Bobologo-or any man like him-but it would be wrong of her to interfere until she had very concrete proof of the exact issue at stake. And that had not yet appeared, and might never appear. So for the time being, the only thing to do was to concentrate on inspecting the House of Hope and wait until Mr Bobologo put a foot wrong and gave himself away. And she had a feeling now-a fairly strong feeling-that he might never do that.

WHILE MMA RAMOTSWE was visiting Mr Bobologo and his House of Hope, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was completing a tricky repair at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. He was relieved, of course, about the cancellation of the parachute jump, but at the same time he was concerned about the fact that one of the apprentices was going to do it in his stead. He knew that these boys were feckless, and he knew that they would do anything to impress girls, but he was their apprentice-master, after all, and he considered that he had a moral responsibility for them until they had served out their apprenticeship. Many people would say that this did not extend to cover what they did in their own time, but Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was not one to take a narrow view of these matters and he could not avoid feeling at least slightly paternal towards these young men, irritating though they undoubtedly were. He was not sure, though, how he could deal with this issue. If he persuaded the young man not to jump, then Mma Potokwane might insist that he do the jump after all. If she did so, then that would lead to a row between her and Mma Ramotswe, and that could become complicated. There might be no more fruit cake, for example, and he would miss his trips out to see the orphans, even if he was inevitably given some task to perform the moment he arrived at the orphan farm.

The repair took less time than he had anticipated, and well before it was time for the morning break Mr J.L.B. Matekoni found himself wiping the steering wheel and the driver’s seat to make the car ready for collection by its owner. He was always very careful to ensure that cars were returned to the customer in a clean state-something he had attempted to drill into the apprentices, but without success.

“How would you feel if your car came back to you with greasy fingerprints all over it?” he said to them. “Would you like it?”

“I would not see them,” said one of the young men. “I am not worried about fingerprints. As long as a car goes fast, that is the only thing.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni could barely credit what he had heard. “Do you mean to say that the only thing that advantages is speed? Is that what you really think?”

The apprentice had looked at him blankly before he gave his reply. “Of course. If a car goes fast, then it is a good car. It has a strong engine. Everybody knows that, Boss.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni shook his head in despair. How many times had he explained about solid engineering and the merits of a reliable gearbox? How many times had he spelled out to these young men the merits of an economical engine, particularly a good diesel engine that would give years and years of service with very little trouble? Diesel-powered cars did not usually go very fast, but that was not the point; they were good cars anyway. None of these lessons, it appeared, had sunk in. He sighed. “I have been wasting my time,” he muttered. “Wasting my time.”

The apprentice smiled. “Wasting your time, Boss? What have you been doing? Dancing? You and Mma Ramotswe going dancing at one of those clubs? Hah!”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni wanted to say, “Trying to teach a hyena to dance,” but did not. Where had he heard that expression before? It seemed familiar, and then he remembered he had said it himself only a few days ago when he had been discussing First Class Motors with Mma Ramotswe. The memory made him start, and put the apprentices quite out of his mind. There was something hanging over him; he had forgotten what it was, but now it came back: he still had to deal with the issue of the butcher’s car, which was due to be brought into the garage that morning. The thought appalled him: he would be able to effect a temporary repair, until such time as he tracked down the right parts, but there was more to it than that. He had agreed that he would confront the Manager of First Class Motors and tell him that his wrongdoing had been discovered. He did not relish this, in view of the other man’s reputation. Indeed, it might have been moderately more attractive to do a parachute jump, perhaps, rather than meet the Manager of First Class Motors.