Mma Ramotswe stood quite still. It now occurred to her that there had been an intruder, and that whoever it was who had come into the house had been disturbed by her return. That person might have run out of the front of the house when she came into the kitchen, but then the front door, which provided the only means of leaving on that side of the house, would have been left firmly locked. This meant that the intruder might still be inside.

For a few moments she wondered what to do. She could telephone the police and tell them that she suspected that somebody was in the house, but what if they came out to investigate and there was nobody? They would hardly be pleased to be called out for no reason at all and they would probably mutter comments about nervous women who should know better than to waste police time while there were real crimes to be looked into. So perhaps it was premature to call the police and she should, instead, go through the house herself, moving from room to room to see if there was anybody there. Of course that was risky. Even in peaceful Botswana there were cases of people being attacked by intruders when they came upon them in the course of a robbery. Some of these people were dangerous. And yet this was Gaborone, on a Saturday afternoon, with the sun riding high in the sky, and people walking along Zebra Drive. This was not a time of shadows and inexplicable noises, a time of darkness. This was not a time to be afraid.

CHAPTER TWO

TROUSERS AND PUMPKINS

MMA RAMOTSWE did not consider herself to be a particularly courageous woman. There were some things of which she was frightened: curtainless windows at night, for example, because one could not see what was outside, in the darkness; and snakes, because there were snakes about which were truly dangerous—puff adders, for example, the lebolobolo, which was fat and lazy and had great curved fangs, or the mokopa, which was long and black and very poisonous and which was well-known to hate humans because of some distant wrong in snake memory. These were things about which one should be frightened; other things could be frightening if one allowed them to be so, but could be faced up to if one were only prepared to look them in the eye.