distribution, habitat, and toxi-city of venom. The snake is one of the most dangerous snakes to be found in Africa, being outranked in this respect only by the Gaboon Viper, a rare, forest-dwelling snake found in certain parts of the eastern districts of Zimbabwe.
'Accounts of attacks by black mambas are often exaggerated, and stories of the snake's attacking men on galloping horses, and overtaking them, are almost certainly apocryphal. The mamba can manage a considerable speed over a very short distance, but could not compete with a horse. Nor are the stories of virtually instantaneous death necessarily true, although the action of the venom can be speeded if the victim of the bite should panic, which of course he often does on realising that he has been bitten by a mamba.
'In one reliably recorded case, a twenty-six-year-old man in good physical condition sustained a mamba bite on his right ankle after he had inadvertently stepped on the snake in the bush. There was no serum immediately available, but the victim possibly succeeded in draining off some of the venom when he inflicted deep cuts on the site of the bite (not a course of action which is today regarded as helpful). He then walked some four miles through the bush to seek help and was admitted to hospital within two hours. Antivenom was administered and the victim survived unscathed; had it been a puff-adder bite, of course, there would have been considerable necrotic damage within that time and he may even have lost the leg…'
Mma Ramotswe paused. One leg. He would need to have an artificial leg. Mr Patel. Nandira. She looked up sharply. The snake book had so absorbed her that she had not been paying attention to the girls and now-where were they?-gone. They were gone.
She pushedThe Snakes of Southern Africa back onto the shelf and rushed out into the square. There were more people about now, as many people did their shopping in the latter part of the afternoon, to escape the heat. She looked about her. There were some teenagers a little way away, but they were boys. No, there was a girl. But was it Nandira? No. She looked in the other direction. There was a man parking his bicycle under a tree and she noticed that the bicycle had a car aerial on it. Why?
She set off in the direction of the President Hotel. Perhaps the girls had merely gone back to the car to rejoin the mother, in which case, everything would be all right. But when she got to the car park, she saw the blue car going out at the other end, with just the mother in it. So the girls were still around, somewhere in the square.
Mma Ramotswe went back to the steps of the President Hotel and looked out over the square. She moved her gaze systematically-as Clovis Andersen recommended-looking at each group of people, scrutinising each knot of shoppers outside each shop window. There was no sign of the girls. She noticed the woman with the rack of blouses. She had a packet of some sort in her hand and was extracting what looked like a Mopani worm from within it.
'Mopani worms?' asked Mma Ramotswe. The woman turned round and looked at her. 'Yes.' She offered the bag to Mma Ramotswe, who helped herself to one of the dried tree worms and popped it into her mouth. It was a delicacy she simply could not resist.
'You must see everything that goes on, Mma,' she said, as she swallowed the worm. 'Standing here like this.'
The woman laughed. 'I see everybody. Everybody.'
'Did you see two girls come out of the Book Centre?' asked Mma Ramotswe. 'One Indian girl and one African girl. The Indian one about so high?'
The trader picked out another worm from her bag and popped it into her mouth.
'I saw them,' she said. 'They went over to the cinema. Then they went off somewhere else. I didn't notice where they were going.'
Mma Ramotswe smiled. 'You should be a detective,' she said.
'Like you,' said the woman simply.
This surprised Mma Ramotswe. She was quite well-known, but she had not necessarily expected a street trader to know who she was. She reached into her handbag and extracted a ten-pula note, which she pressed into the woman's hand.
'Thank you,' she said. 'That's a fee from me. And I hope you will be able to help me again some time.'
The woman seemed delighted.
'I can tell you everything,' she said. 'I am the eyes of this place. This morning, for example, do you want to know who was talking to whom just over there? Do you know? You'd be surprised if I told you.'
'Some other time,' said Mma Ramotswe. 'I'll be in touch.'
There was no point in trying to find where Nandira had got to now, but there was every point in following up the information that she already had. So Mma Ramotswe went to the cinema and enquired as to the time of that evening's performance, which is what she concluded the two girls had been doing. Then she returned to the little white van and drove home, to prepare herself for an early supper and an outing to the cinema. She had seen the name of the film; it was not something that she wanted to sit through, but it had been at least a year since she had been to the cinema and she found that she was looking forward to the prospect.
Mr Patel telephoned before she left.
'My daughter has said that she is going out to see a friend about some homework,' he said peevishly. 'She is lying to me again.'
'Yes,' said Mma Ramotswe. 'I'm afraid that she is. But I know where she's going and I shall be there, don't you worry.'
'She is going to see this Jack?' shouted Mr Patel. 'She is meeting this boy?'
'Probably,' said Mma Ramotswe. 'But there is no point in your upsetting yourself. I will give you a report tomorrow.'
'Early-early, please,' said Mr Patel. 'I am always up at six, sharp-sharp-'
THERE WERE very few people in the cinema when Mma Ramotswe arrived. She chose a seat in the penultimate row, at the back. This gave her a good view of the door through which anybody entering the auditorium would have to pass, and even if Nandira and Jack came in after the lights had gone down, it would still be possible for Mma Ramotswe to pick them out.
Mma Ramotswe recognised several of the customers. Her butcher arrived shortly after she did, and he and his wife gave her a friendly wave. Then there was one of the teachers from the school and the woman who ran the aerobics class at the President Hotel. Finally there was the Catholic bishop, who arrived by himself and ate popcorn loudly in the front row.
Nandira arrived five minutes before the first part of the programme was about to start. She was by herself, and she stood for a moment in the door, looking around her. Mma Ramotswe felt her eyes rest on her, and she looked down quickly, as if inspecting the floor for something. After a moment or two she looked up again, and saw that the girl was still looking at her.
Mma Ramotswe looked down at the floor again, and saw a discarded ticket, which she reached down to pick up.
Nandira walked purposefully across the auditorium to Mma Ramotswe's row and sat down in the seat next to her.
'Evening, Mma,' she said politely. 'Is this seat taken?'
Mma Ramotswe looked up, as if surprised.
'There is nobody there,' she said. 'It is quite free.'
Nandira sat down.
'I am looking forward to this film,' she said pleasantly. 'I have wanted to see it for a long time.'
'Good,' said Mma Ramotswe. 'It is nice to see a film that you've always wanted to see.'
There was a silence. The girl was looking at her, and Mma Ramotswe felt quite uncomfortable. What would Clovis Andersen have done in such circumstances? She was sure that he said something about this sort of thing, but she could not quite remember what it was. This was where the subject crowded you, rather than the other way round.
'I saw you this afternoon,' said Nandira. 'I saw you at Maru-a-Pula.'
'Ah, yes,' said Mma Ramotswe. 'I was waiting for somebody.'
'Then I saw you in the Book Centre,' Nandira continued. 'You were looking at a book.'
'That's right,' said Mma Ramotswe. 'I was thinking of buying a book.'
