She paused. “How should I put that, Mma?” she asked Mma Makutsi.

“We found that there was some dissatisfaction,” suggested Mma Makutsi.

“Very good. We found that there was some dissatisfaction with the style that you yourself adopt in telling the team what to do. We do not wish to give offence, Rra, but we must tell you that the team might play better if you did not spend so much time changing tactics and telling them what to do. In conclusion, therefore…”

Again Mma Makutsi provided the form of words. “You should say, In conclusion, we think that there is no evidence of a traitor and all inquiries of this nature should be terminated-after payment of our bill, which we now append to this report as appendix 1(a).”

“That is very good,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You are very good with words, Mma. And I am happy enough with this report now, even though it says really very little…”

“It says nothing,” said Mma Makutsi, closing her notebook with a flourish. “But that, Mma, is because there are some cases in which there is nothing to say.”

WHEN SATURDAY CAME, Mma Ramotswe arranged for Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni to drop Puso off at the football ground where the Kalahari Swoopers were due to play the Molepolole Squibs. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had toyed with the idea of going too, but had decided, in the end, to catch up on his accounts, which he had sorely neglected over the last month. If you don't send bills, Mma Ramotswe had pointed out to him, then people forget to pay you. He knew that was true, and yet there always seemed so many other things to do-more important things, he felt, such as finding what was wrong with a particularly cantankerous car, or looking for a spare part for Mma Potokwane's old van, or any of the other things that a generous-hearted mechanic finds himself asked to do. Of course it would have been simpler had he insisted on payment in every case before a vehicle was removed-every other garage did that-but how could he turn away a car in need simply because of its owner's temporary impecuniosity? He could not, and Mma Ramotswe-and everybody else, particularly impecunious drivers-loved him for it.

So it was accounts, rather than football, for Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, and for Mma Ramotswe it was, to her immense satisfaction, a perfectly ordinary Saturday. She would do her shopping with Motholeli before dropping her off to play at a friend's house. Then she would have tea at the President Hotel, perhaps call in on a friend for a further cup of tea, walk in her garden, sit on her verandah, plan the evening meal, and have an afternoon nap on her bed with the latest copy of her favourite magazine. That would be the best part of it all-lying on the bed reading helpful household hints and about the exotic, patently doomed romance of some distant person, before allowing the magazine to slip out of her hand as sleep-dreamless afternoon sleep-overtook her.

Puso, of course, was bursting with excitement as he prepared for his football outing. This excitement was mixed with a certain self-importance: he had been told to report to Mr. Molofololo when he arrived at the game, and he would be allowed to help the team get ready. He now spoke of the team as “us” and Mr. Molofololo as “my friend, Rra Molofololo.” But he was realistic, too, for all his enthusiasm, and told Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni as they drove to the match that he thought it likely that the Molepolole Squibs would win.

“You never know,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “You never know what can happen.”

“We will not play well,” said Puso. “We are full of bad luck at the moment.”

And when he was collected at the end of the match, his expression told Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni everything, even before the young boy had climbed into the cab of the truck.

“No?” asked Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.

“The Squibs won,” said Puso. “They are not a very strong team, but they won. They scored so many goals.”

“But it was a good game?” asked Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.

“If you were a Squib,” said Puso.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was thoughtful. There would have to be a lesson about sportsmanship, and about enjoying a game, no matter what the outcome. It was sometimes a hard lesson to be learned, and some people never learned it, but it was needed. He looked at Puso and tried to remember what it was like to be that age. You wanted things so much-that was it: you wanted things so much that you ached. And sometimes you believed that you could make the things you yearned for happen, just by willing them. He had done that himself-he remembered it vividly, when as a boy he had lost a favourite uncle and he had walked out into the bush and looked up at the sky and addressed God directly: Please make him not be dead. Please make him not be dead. And when he had got home, he had half expected that his act of willing would have somehow worked and his uncle would have miraculously recovered. But of course there was still the sound of keening women and the black armbands and all the other signs that it had not worked: the world is the world in spite of all our wishes to the contrary.

When they returned to the house, Mma Ramotswe was up from her nap and was chopping onions in the kitchen. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni told her that the Kalahari Swoopers had not played well-as everyone expected-and that Puso was taking it badly.

“He'll learn,” she said. “We all learn about losing.”

“Except Mr. Molofololo,” mused Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “I'm not sure that he's learned about losing.”

“No,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Some people like that seem not to have learned these simple lessons.”

Puso came into the kitchen and began to tell her about the game. After a few minutes, she lost track of what he was saying. It was something about tackles and fouls and penalties- technical details that she had heard people talking about over the past weeks but that still meant very little to her. And then, by chance, she said, “And did you talk to the players? Did Mr. Molofololo let you help, as he said he would?”

Puso nodded. “I was allowed to hold the ball while they were waiting to go on. Some of them talked to me.”

She began to peel another onion. She was not really interested in football any more, now that she had written her report and was intending to bring the investigation to an unsatisfactory conclusion. But Puso was, and she was listening with half an ear. “And what did they say?” she asked.

“Most of them said they didn't like their boots,” he said. “One of them said that they were very uncomfortable, and the others all joined in.”

Mma Ramotswe hesitated. She put down the onion.

“They said that their boots were uncomfortable?”

“Yes. They said that Mr. Molofololo had made them wear boots that a sponsor had given them. They said that they had been wearing them for six months and they were still uncomfortable. I thought they looked very nice…”

Mma Ramotswe looked out of the window. It was so obvious. So obvious. But then the solutions to complex problems were often such simple things. If you wore uncomfortable boots, then how could you play good football? Of course you cannot-everybody, even a woman who owned a detective agency and who came from Mochudi and who had a fine mechanic for a husband, and two children who loved her although she was not their real mother, and who was the daughter of a man called Obed Ramotswe-even such a woman, with absolutely no knowledge of football, and no interest in it-even she would know that.

Then she remembered something, and the remembering of it struck her so forcefully that she found herself holding her breath, almost afraid to breathe. Of course. Of course. Mr. Molofololo had made that strange remark, right at the beginning: I am the one. It is me. He knew! He knew-on one level-that he was the problem, and it had slipped out. He knew but did not know, as was often the case with a person's own faults. We know what is wrong, but we cannot bring ourselves to admit it. She had helped clients like that before-people who really knew the answer to their problems but wanted somebody else to help them admit it. She breathed out. Yes. Yes.