There were also one or two minor cases that her assistant was working on, and she might busy herself with writing reports on these. Mma Makutsi was an enthusiastic writer of reports and maintained a bulging file labelled Incidental and Interim Reports that served little purpose in Mma Ramotswe's view, but that kept her busy at slack times. Mma Ramotswe thought of this file as Mma Makutsi's diary, but never described it as such. Her assistant, she remembered, was temperamental, and Mma Ramotswe had not forgotten that she had handed in her resignation not all that long ago. Even if she had stayed out of the office for less than a day, and had returned as if nothing had happened, Mma Ramotswe reminded herself that Mma Makutsi had no real need to work now that she was engaged to be married to Mr. Phuti Radiphuti, proprietor of the Double Comfort Furniture Shop and, as such, a man of considerable means. So she was careful not to offend her sometimes prickly assistant, and calling the Incidental and Interim Reports file a diary would undoubtedly have been very offensive.

The walk down Zebra Drive itself was uneventful. Her neighbour's dogs, those strange yellow dogs that Mma Ramotswe did not particularly like, barked at her as if she was any other passerby, running along the fence at the side of the neighbour's property, baring their teeth in impotent anger. She saw a curtain move in the neighbour's window and heard a shout as the dogs were called in; she waved, and the neighbour returned her greeting, a quick movement of a hand in a still-darkened room.

At the top of Zebra Drive there was more traffic, and she had to wait a few moments before she crossed to the other side of the road. The day still had the early morning feel about it, and the air was still sharp with a whiff of wood smoke. There were small huddles of people waiting beside the road for the early minibuses to sway past and a few others walking; domestic employees, Mma Ramotswe thought-cooks, maids, nannies of children-making their way to the well-set houses in the roads near Maru-a-Pula School.