Now Mma Makutsi was wide awake, and trying to make sense of what the shoes had said. What could they see that she could not? She shifted slightly so as to be able to look over the edge of the bed. Her shoes were there where she had slipped out of them, their toes pointed towards the bed. We can see things down here that you can’t see up there…

Mma Makutsi gasped. She was enough of a detective to work out that if – and it was an unlikely if – the shoes could see things that she could not, then, given the direction they were pointing in, whatever they were looking at would be under the bed. The thought brought a momentary surge of fear, but she made a conscious effort to control herself. You could make up all sorts of fears and then you would end up being too frightened to do anything. You had to be careful not to imagine things that were simply not there.

She took a deep breath and began to move her legs out over the edge of the bed.

Don’t say we didn’t tell you, boss!

She stopped, and looked down at the shoes. This was ridiculous. This was the sort of behaviour that ended in your being carted off to the special hospital in Lobatse. She completed the manoeuvre and stood up beside the bed. Then, decisively and deliberately, she slipped into her shoes. It crossed her mind that she should check them first to see that no scorpions had crept in – that had been known to happen – but now it was too late, and there was no sharp pain from a sting. No, it was all a matter of an overactive imagination, something to do with being pregnant perhaps.

But then she heard it. This time it was nothing to do with the creaking of the roof or the nudging of the wind. This time it was much clearer: the sound of motion, the sound of something sliding over something else. She edged away from the bed in the direction of the door. Then, very carefully, she bent down so that she could peer, from a safe distance, under the bed.

The snake was lying under the bed, stretched out, its upper body bent near the neck so that the head was pointed back in Mma Makutsi’s direction and it looked directly at her. She saw its eyes, tiny points of reflected light; she saw the tongue move in a rapid flicker. It was watching her.