“Not really. Just the back of his head. But he was a very polite bad driver. He thanked me after he had passed me on the wrong side. He actually thanked me.”

Mma Ramotswe nodded. “He must be having an affair, that man. He must be rushing off to see a lady. I suspect he was late, and did not want to keep her waiting.”

“Come on now, Mma! How can you tell that just from the colour of the car?”

“There is that. But there is also the politeness. He is a man who is feeling pleased with the world and grateful for something. So he thanked you.”

He went over this imaginary conversation in his head. He could just hear her, and her explanation, and he thought how she would probably be right, even if he could not see how she could reach a conclusion on the basis of such slender evidence. But that was the difference between Mma Ramotswe, a detective, and him, a mere mechanic. That was a very significant difference, and…

He paused. On the road before him, still some way in the distance, but unmistakable, he could see a car pulled up at the side of the road, a car that he recognised as belonging to Mma Mateleke. And just beyond it, also pulled up at the side of the road, was the large red car that had shot past him a few minutes previously. The driver had got out of the red car and was standing beside Mma Mateleke’s window, looking for all the world as if he had stopped to chat with an old friend encountered along the road. He had been in such a terrible rush, and yet here he was, stopping to talk. What would Mma Ramotswe make of this, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni wondered, as he began to apply the brakes of his truck.

Mma Mateleke had got out of her car by the time Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had parked safely on the verge. She greeted him warmly as he approached.

“Well, well, I am a very lucky lady today,” she said. “Here you are, Mr. Matekoni, with that truck of yours. And here is another man, too, who happened to be passing. It is very nice for a lady in distress to have two strong men at her side.”