“It’s a little bit early for your tea break,” suggested Mma Ramotswe mildly, looking at her wrist-watch. “But no matter. I’m sure that you have lots of work to do now.”

“They’re so lazy,” muttered Mma Makutsi, under her breath. “The moment Mr J.L.B. Matekoni goes anywhere, they down tools.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled. “They’re still very young,” she said. “They still need supervision. All young men are like that.”

“Especially useless ones like these,” said Mma Makutsi, as they entered the office. “And to think that when they finish their apprenticeships—whenever that will be—they will be let loose on the public. Imagine that, Mma. Imagine Charlie with his own business. Imagine driving into a garage and finding Charlie in control!”

Mma Ramotswe said nothing. She had tried to persuade Mma Makutsi to be a bit more tolerant of the two young men, but it seemed that her assistant had something of a blind spot. As far as she was concerned, the apprentices could do no right, and nothing could be said to convince her otherwise.

The two went into the office. Mma Ramotswe walked over to the window behind her desk and opened it wide. It was a warm day, and already the heat had built up in the small room; the window at least allowed the movement of air, even if the air itself was the hot breath of the Kalahari. While Mma Ramotswe stood before the window, gazing up into the cloudless sky, Mma Makutsi filled the kettle for the first cup of tea of the morning. She then turned round and began to pull her chair out from where she had tucked it under her desk. And that was the point at which she screamed—a scream that cut through the air and sent a small white gecko scuttling for its life across the ceiling boards.

Mma Ramotswe spun round, to see the other woman standing quite still, her face frozen in fear.

“Sn … ,” she stuttered, and then, “Snake, Mma Ramotswe! Snake!”

For a moment Mma Ramotswe did nothing. All those years ago in Mochudi, she had been taught by her father that with snakes the important thing to do was not to make sudden movements. A sudden movement, only too natural of course, could frighten a snake into striking, which most snakes, he said, were reluctant to do.

“They do not want to waste their venom,” he had told her. “And remember that they are as frightened of us as we are of them—possibly even more so.”

But no snake could have been as terrified as was Mma Makutsi when she saw the hood of the cobra at her feet sway slowly from side to side. She knew that she should avert her eyes, as such snakes can spit their venom into the eyes of their target with uncanny accuracy; she knew that, but she still found her gaze fixed to the small black eyes of the snake, so tiny and so filled with menace.