“Would it?” asked Mma Ramotswe. She was not a cynical woman, but she wondered whether one set of people who looked remarkably like another set of people would run things any differently. But she did not wish to provoke a political argument with her cousin, and so she changed the subject by asking after the doings of a local woman who had killed a neighbour’s goat because she thought that the neighbour was flirting with her husband. It was a long-running saga and was providing a great deal of amusement for everyone.

“She crept out at night and cut the goat’s throat,” said the cousin. “The goat must have thought she was a tokolosh, or something like that. She is a very wicked woman.”

“There are many like that,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Men think that women can’t be wicked, but we are quite capable of being wicked too.”

“Even more wicked than men,” said the cousin. “Women are much more wicked, don’t you agree?”

“No,” said Mma Ramotswe. She thought that the levels of male and female wickedness were about the same; it just took slightly different forms.

The cousin looked peevishly at Mma Ramotswe. “Women have not had much of a chance to be wicked in a big way,” she muttered. “Men have taken all the best jobs, where you can be truly wicked. If women here were allowed to be generals and presidents and the like, then they would be very wicked, same as all those wicked men. Just give them the chance. Look at how those lady generals have behaved.”

Mma Ramotswe picked up a piece of straw and examined it closely. “Name one,” she said.

The cousin thought, but no names came to her, at least no names of generals. “There was an Indian lady called Mrs Gandhi.”