He left the garage, still smarting, busy rehearsing in his mind what he would say to her when he reached the office.

"Mma Ramotswe, you've made me lie. You've drawn me into a ridiculous and dangerous affair which is quite simply none of our business. I am a mechanic. I fix cars-I cannot fix lives."

The last phrase struck him for its forcefulness. Yes-that was the difference between them. She was a fixer of lives-as so many women are-whereas he was a fixer of machines. He would tell her this, and she would have to accept its truth. He did not want to destroy their friendship, but he could not continue with this posturing and deception. He had never lied- never-even in the face of the greatest of temptations, and now here he was enmeshed in a whole web of deceit involving the police and one of Botswana 's most powerful men!

She met him at the door of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. She was throwing the dregs from a teapot into the yard as he drew up in his garage van.

"Well?" she said. "Did everything go as planned?" "Mma Ramotswe, I really think…"

"Did he come round himself, or did he send one of his men?"

"One of his men. But, listen, you are a fixer of lives, I am just…"

"And did you tell him that I could get the thing back? Did he seem interested?"

"I fix machines. I cannot… You see, I have never lied. I have never lied before, even when I was a small boy. My tongue would go stiff if I tried to lie, and I couldn't."

Mma Ramotswe upended the teapot for a final time.

"You've done very well this time. Lies are quite all right if you are lying for a good cause. Is it not a good cause to find out who killed an innocent child? Are lies worse than murder, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni? Do you think that?"

"Murder is worse. But…"

"Well there you are. You didn't think it through, did you? Now you know."

She looked at him and smiled, and he thought: I am lucky. She is smiling at me. There is nobody to love me in this world. Here is somebody who likes me and smiles at me. And she's right about murder. It's far worse than lies.

"Come in for tea," said Mma Ramotswe. "Mma Makutsi has boiled the kettle and we can drink tea while we decide what to do next."

CHAPTER NINETEEN

MR CHARLIE Gotso looked at Mma Ramotswe. He respected fat women, and indeed had married one five years previously. She had proved to be a niggling, troublesome woman and eventually he had sent her down to live on a farm near Lobatse, with no telephone and a road that became impassable in wet weather. She had complained about his other women, insistently, shrilly, but what did she expect? Did she seriously think that he, Mr Charlie Gotso, would restrict himself to one woman, like a clerk from a Government department? When he had all that money and influence? And a BA as well? That was the trouble with marrying an uneducated woman who knew nothing of the circles in which he moved. He had been to Nairobi and Lusaka. He knew what people were thinking in places like that. An intelligent woman, a woman with a BA, would have known better; but then, hereminded himself, this fat woman down in Lobatse had borne him five children already and one had to acknowledge that fact. If only she would not carp on about other women.

"You are the woman from Matekoni?"

She did not like his voice. It was sandpaper-rough, and he slurred the ends of the words lazily, as if he could not be bothered to make himself clear. This came from contempt, she felt; if you were as powerful as he was, then why bother to communicate properly with your inferiors? As long as they understood what you wanted-that was the essential thing.

"Mr J.L.B. Matekoni asked me to help him, Rra. I am a private detective."

Mr Gotso stared at her, a slight smile playing on his lips.

"I have seen this place of yours. I saw a sign when I was driving past. A private detective agency for ladies, or something like that."

"Not just for ladies, Rra," said Mma Ramotswe. "We are lady detectives but we work for men too. Mr Patel, for example. He consulted us."

The smile became broader. "You think you can tell men things?"

Mma Ramotswe answered calmly. "Sometimes. It depends. Sometimes men are too proud to listen. We can't tell that sort of man anything."

He narrowed his eyes. The remark was ambiguous. She could have been suggesting he was proud, or she could be talking about other men. There were others, of course…

"So anyway," said Mr Gotso. "You know that I lost some property from my car. Matekoni says that you might know who took it and get it back for me?"

Mma Ramotswe inclined her head in agreement. "I have done that," she said. "I found out who broke into your car. They were just boys. A couple of boys."

Mr Gotso raised an eyebrow. "Their names? Tell me who they are."

"I cannot do that," said Mma Ramotswe. "I want to smack them. You will tell me who they are." Mma Ramotswe looked up at Mr Gotso and met his gaze. For a moment neither said anything. Then she spoke: "I gave them my word I would not give their names to anybody if they gave me back what they had stolen. It was a bargain." As she spoke, she looked around Mr Gotso's office. It was just behind the Mall, in an unprepossessing side street, marked on the outside with a large blue sign, gotso holding enterprises. Inside, the room was simply furnished, and if it were not for the photographs on the wall, you would hardly know that this was the room of a powerful man. But the photographs gave it away: Mr Gotso with Moeshoeshoe, King of the Basotho; Mr Gotso with Hastings Banda; Mr Gotso with Sobhuza II. This was a man whose influence extended beyond their borders.

"You made a promise on my behalf?" "Yes, I did. It was the only way I could get the item back." Mr Gotso appeared to think for a moment; Mma Ramotswe looked at one of the pictures more closely. Mr Gotso was giving a cheque to some good cause and everybody was smiling; "Big cheque handed over for charity" ran the cut-out newspaper headline below.

"Very well," he said. "I suppose that was all you could do. Now, where is this item of property?"

Mma Ramotswe reached into her handbag and took out the small leather pouch.

"This is what they gave me."

She put it on the table and he reached across and took it in his hand.

"This is not mine, of course. This is something which one of my men had. I was looking after it for him. I have no idea what it is."

"Muti, Rra. Medicine from a witch doctor."

Mr Gotso's look was steely.

"Oh yes? Some little charm for the superstitious?"

Mma Ramotswe shook her head.

"No, I don't think so. I think that is powerful stuff. I think that was probably rather expensive."

"Powerful?" His head stayed absolutely still as he spoke, she noticed. Only the lips moved as the unfinished words slid out.

"Yes. That is good. I would like to be able to get something like that myself. But I do not know where I can find it."

Mr Gotso moved slightly now, and the eyes slid down Mma Ramotswe's figure.

"Maybe I could help you, Mma."

She thought quickly, and then gave her answer. "I would like you to help me. Then maybe I could help you in some way."

He had reached for a cigarette from a small box on his table and was now lighting it. Again the head did not move.

"In what way could you help me, Mma? Do you think I'm a lonely man?"

"You are not lonely. I have heard that you are a man with many women friends. You don't need another."

"Surely I'm the best judge of that."

"No, I think you are a man who likes information. You need that to keep powerful. You need muti too, don't you?"

He took the cigarette out of his mouth and laid it on a large glass ashtray.