Free The No. 2 Global Detective by Toby Clements Page A

o’clock Moral Dilemma. If Mma Pollosopresso did not shoot her, then Mma Ontoaste would certainly die from the snakebite, wouldn’t she? So she was, in effect, already dead, which meant that if Mma Pollosopresso shot her now, would she really be killing her? Would she not just be shooting a dead body? Even the law might be vague on that one. Mma Pollosopresso realised with a slight chuckle that the only person who might be able to hand down some sort of opinion on this matter might be the very person who was about to die: Mma Ontoaste.
    It would be interesting to hear her opinion. And now that she, Mma Pollosopresso, had set up her own Detective Agency, The Only Detective Agency You Will Ever Need Ever! No. 4 , they could debate the matter as equals, detective to detective. Oh that would be fun.
    Mma Pollosopresso took her finger off the trigger and put the gun aside. She bent down and placed a careful hand on the detective’s neck. A ragged pulse was still beating. Mma Pollosopresso knew that she had to act fast: water and antivenom were vital, as well as some kind of pressure immobilisation that would prevent the venom leaking into Mma Ontoaste’s lymphatic system. But first Mma Pollosopresso would have to find the bite to know where she could apply her tourniquet.
    It was as Mma Pollosopresso was searching the body of the redoubtable founder of The Best Detective Agency in the World Ever! No. 2 for snakebites that Mr JPS Spagatoni, that good man, returned from his day at the Salt-’n’-Sauce Scotch Chip Supper Shop on Murieston Road, out by the old UDF headquarters. As usual, it had been a long day for Mr JPS Spagatoni. He had started drinking his first 80/- beer of the day at about four that afternoon, a little while after Mma Ontoaste’s disastrous visit, and so he was now quite tanked. He was being half supported, half carried by one of the trainees, Dennis, and Mr JPS Spagatoni’s accent, always stronger when he had been drinking, made the song he was singing as they weaved their way up the road under the sodium glare of the street lights difficult to understand. Under one arm he was carrying four tins of 80/- beer and a half bottle of blended malt whisky and so it did not look as if he planned to end the day with an early night.
    When they reached the yard, Dennis led his boss across to the toilet, an outside hut the practicalities of which no one ever really went into. While Mr JPS Spagatoni was micturating noisily into the bucket, Dennis noticed Mma Pollosopresso and Mma Ontoaste in the pumpkin patch.
    â€˜Mma, what are you doing?’ he asked.
    â€˜Oh Dennis,’ replied Mma Pollosopresso. ‘Mma Ontoaste has been bitten by a snake. Will you run to the hospital in Bobonong to get some antivenom and to ask them to send a bus to collect her and take her there?’
    Dennis understood the urgency and, once he had put Mr JPS Spagatoni in that good man’s favourite chair on the veranda, he set off for the hospital almost at once. It was only when Mr JPS Spagatoni was on the other side of two of the cans of 80/- and half of the whisky that he looked up and noticed Mma Pollosopresso in the garden. He had been keeping up a steady soliloquy on the evils of people from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Angola, Mozambique, Malawi and, of course, the Democratic Republic of Congo all the while, and as she searched Mma Ontoaste’s body, Mma Pollosopresso knew that it was only a short matter of time before Mr JPS Spagatoni would begin to mourn the death of Bonnie Prince Charlie with tears coursing down his stubbly cheeks. After that he would ordinarily start throwing bottles and cursing the English before collapsing in a puddle of his own making.
    But now he frowned into the darkness of the Botswana night and tried to work out what was going on. At first he thought it was an optical illusion. Then he thought his wife was being robbed. This stirred him to action. He