Two weeks left until his retirement! Detective Inspector Tau is weary now. He has seen it all – the best and the worst of human nature. After 40 years in the Botswana Police Force, nothing can surprise him.

Two weeks and then he will be gone from this cramped, stuffy office with its huge, battered desk. He will exchange it for his favourite space: under the ancient mophane tree that grows in his yard. Back in Sedia Ward. With his wife and grown daughters singing while they hang their washing over the fence. With little Omphile and Otsile digging roads and bridges in the sand for their toy cars.

D.I. Tau has bought new garden chairs, four of them. For sure, neighbours will come visiting to share tea and talk. Like Amos Kgomo who retired last year. Forty years as a safari guide for the luxury lodges of the national game parks. Amos has such stories! Of strange encounters with wild life. Of even stranger encounters with the foreign tourists who flock to Maun and the Okavango Delta beyond. Tourists from Germany, from Spain, from Texas and Chicago.

D.I. Tau has his own stories about foreign tourists. Chief Superintendent Dintwe has always sent tourist case-files to D.I. Tau’s desk.

“You handle these magoa, these white people, best, Motheo,” Chief Superintendent Dintwe has always insisted. “They are comfortable explaining to you.”

But now D.I. Tau’s huge desk is empty. Bare, except for a few small paper circles from his desk punch. Like confetti from when his youngest daughter got married. What a day that was! And how beautiful she looked!

“Ko ko?”

D.I. Tau hopes it is his morning coffee. But no. Instead it is a new young Constable, pretty and smart in her new uniform. She holds a file in her hands.

“Dumela, Detective Inspector. The Chief is asking for you to deal with this,” she says. She places the file on the desk in front of him, “It is Mrs Badlangana’s case. About her missing son.”

D.I. Tau is surprised. A little annoyed. “But why? He promised …”

It’s true. The Chief Superintendent promised that his caseload was over. Finished. “You relax now, Matheo. Spend your last few days writing out your farewell speech.”

Now the Constable ushers Mrs Badlangana into the office. And D.I. Tau understands at once why he has been given the case. Mrs Badlangana is a legoa, despite her Tswana surname. A white woman in her fifties. Although now her face is red and blotchy, and with her eyes bloodshot from crying.

Her missing son’s name is Neo. Neo Andrew Badlangana.

“Neo because he is a gift, you understand? Neo means ‘gift’ in Setswana, isn’t it? And I waited so long for him. So many years of disappointments. And then he was born, even though I was 40 by then. The greatest gift I could ever ask for!”

She smiles through her tears.

D.I. Tau nods his head gently. Behind the weeping woman, the Constable stands at ease, hands behind her back, listening with wide eyes.

And Neo Badlangana is 18 years old.

 ***

Tell us: How do you feel about a career in the Police Force? What would you enjoy? What would you find difficult?