Moretsi nodded rapidly.

'You are a good Christian lady," he said. "God is going to make it very easy for you in heaven."

"I hope so," said Mma Ramotswe. "But I am also a very nasty lady sometimes. And if you try any more of this nonsense with insurance people, then you will find that I will become very unpleasant."

"I understand," said Moretsi. "I understand."

"You see," said Mma Ramotswe, casting a glance at the attentive attorney, "there are some people in this country, some men, who think that women are soft and can be twisted this way and that. Well I'm not. I can tell you, if you are interested, that I killed a cobra, a big one, on my way here this afternoon."

"Oh?" said Jameson Mopotswane. "What did you do?"

"I cut it in two," said Mma Ramotswe. "Two pieces."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

ALL THAT was a distraction. It was gratifying to deal with a case like that so quickly, and to the clear satisfaction of the client, but one could not put out of one's mind the fact that there was a small brown envelope in the drawer with contents that could not be ignored.

She took it out discreetly, not wanting Mma Makutsi to see it. She thought that she could trust her, but this was a matter which was very much more confidential than any other matter they had encountered so far. This was dangerous.

She left the office, telling Mma Makutsi that she was going to the bank. Several cheques had come in, and needed to be deposited. But she did not go to the bank, or at least not immediately. She drove instead to the Princess Marina Hospital and followed the signs that said pathology.

A nurse stopped her.

"Are you here to identify a body, Mma?"

Mma Ramotswe shook her head. "I have come to see Dr Gulubane. He is not expecting me, but he will see me. I am his neighbour."

The nurse looked at her suspiciously, but told her to wait while she went to fetch the doctor. A few minutes after she returned and said that the doctor would be with her shortly.

"You should not disturb these doctors at the hospital," she said disapprovingly. "They are busy people."

Mma Ramotswe looked at the nurse. What age was she? Nineteen, twenty? In her father's day, a girl of nineteen would not have spoken to a woman of thirty-five like that-spoken to her as if she was a child making an irritating request. But things were different now. Upstarts showed no respect for people who were older, and bigger too, than they were. Should she tell her that she was a private detective? No, there was no point in engaging with a person like this. She was best ignored. Dr Gulubane arrived. He was wearing a green apron- heaven knows what awful task he had been performing-and he seemed quite pleased to have been disturbed.

"Come with me to my office," he said. "We can talk there." Mma Ramotswe followed him down a corridor to a small office furnished with a completely bare table, a telephone, and a battered grey filing cabinet. It was like the office of a minor civil servant, and it was only the medical books on a shelf which gave away its real purpose.

"As you know," she began, "I'm a private detective these days."

Dr Gulubane beamed a broad smile. He was remarkably cheerful, she thought, given the nature of his job.

"You won't get me to talk about my patients," he said. "Even if they're all dead."

She shared the joke. "That's not what I want," she said. "All I would like you to do is to identify something for me. I have it with me." She took out the envelope and spilled its contents on the desk.

Dr Gulubane immediately stopped smiling and picked up the bone. He adjusted his spectacles.

"Third metacarpal," he muttered. "Child. Eight. Nine. Something like that."

Mma Ramotswe could hear her own breathing.

"Human?"

"Of course," said Dr Gulubane. "As I said, it's from a child. An adult's bone would be bigger. You can tell at a glance. A child of about eight or nine. Possibly a bit older."

The doctor put the bone down on the table and looked up at Mma Ramotswe.

"Where did you get it?"

Mma Ramotswe shrugged. "Somebody showed it to me. And you won't get me to talk about my clients either."

Dr Gulubane made an expression of distaste.

"These things shouldn't be handed round like that," he said. "People show no respect."

Mma Ramotswe nodded her agreement. "But can you tell me anything more? Can you tell me when the… when the child died?"

Dr Gulubane opened a drawer and took out a magnifying glass, with which he examined the bone further, turning it round in the palm of his hand.

"Not all that long ago," he said. "There's a small amount of tissue here at the top. It doesn't look entirely dessicated. Maybe a few months, maybe less. You can't be sure."

Mma Ramotswe shuddered. It was one thing to handle bone, but to handle human tissue was quite a different matter.

"And another thing," said Dr Gulubane. "How do you know that the child whose bone this is is dead? I thought you were the detective-surely you would have thought: this is an extremity-people can lose extremities and still live! Did you think that, Mrs Detective? I bet you didn't!"

SHE CONVEYED the information to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni over dinner in her house. He had readily accepted her invitation and she had prepared a large pot of stew and a combination of rice and melons. Halfway through the meal she told him of her visit to Dr Gulubane. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni stopped eating.

"A child?" There was dismay in his voice.

"That's what Dr Gulubane said. He couldn't be certain about the age. But he said it was about eight or nine."

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni winced. It would have been far better never to have found the bag. These things happened-they all knew that-but one did not want to get mixed up in them. They could only mean trouble-particularly if Charlie Gotso was involved in them.

"What do we do?" asked Mma Ramotswe.

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni closed his eyes and swallowed hard.

"We can go to the police," he said. "And if we do that, Charlie Gotso will get to hear about my finding the bag. And that will be me done for, or just about."

Mma Ramotswe agreed. The police had a limited interest in pursuing crime, and certain sorts of crime interested them not at all. The involvement of the country's most powerful figures in witchcraft would certainly be in the latter category.

"I don't think we should go to the police," said Mma Ramotswe.

"So we just forget about it?" Mr J.L.B. Matekoni fixed Mma Ramotswe with a look of appeal.

"No. We can't do that," she said. "People have been forgetting about this sort of thing for long enough, haven't they? We can't do that."

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni lowered his eyes. His appetite seemed to have deserted him now, and the stew was congealing on his plate.

"The first thing we do," she said, "is to arrange for Charlie Gotso's windscreen to be broken. Then you telephone him and tell him that thieves have broken into his car while it was in the garage. You tell him that there does not appear to have been anything stolen, but that you will willingly pay for a new windscreen yourself. Then you wait and see."

"To see what?"

"To see if he comes back and tells you something's missing. If he does, you tell him that you will personally undertake to recover this thing, whatever it is. You tell him that you have a contact, a lady private detective, who is very good at recovering stolen property. That's me, of course."

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni's jaw had dropped. One did not simply go up to Charlie Gotso just like that. You had to pull strings to see him.

"And then?"

"Then I take the bag back to him and you leave it up to me. I'll get the name of the witch doctor from him and then, well, we'll think about what to do then."