The cab driver jammed the car into an impossibly tiny space outside Park station, between the bollard on one side and a VW Kombi on the other. Lindi opened the door, stuck her head through the gap, then corkscrewed the rest of her body out, but in the process snagged her rucksack on the door handle inside.

‘Don’t pull, don’t pull,’ shouted the driver. ‘You are going to spoil the car.’ He leaned over from the front seat and freed the strap. It was still too bulky. Lindi reached in and pulled out the two-litre bottle of water from the webbing, then tugged the rucksack free. She hadn’t even started and already she was exhausted. Never a good sleeper, the overnight flight a couple of days earlier and lying awake, rerunning the previous day’s encounter with Kagiso till well after midnight, had left her feeling enervated.

Meeting Kagiso hadn’t gone anything like she’d planned or hoped. There had been something awkward about it, something unsaid in their conversation. She was still wondering whether it was simply the passage of time, or something else. It was a little after six in the morning. The cup of coffee she’d been promised by the housekeeper at the guesthouse had failed to materialise in time. She was aware of the first signs of a dizzying pang of hunger.

The combination of Park station and the adjoining Noord Street, a terminus for the city’s minibus taxis, make for one of the busiest transport hubs on the continent. After the croissant-and-cappuccino civility of Greenside, where she’d stayed for the last two nights, this was Africa in all its impressive tumult – even at this time of the day.

Lindi waited for the driver to get her bag out of the boot. He sat where he was and told her through the half-open window that she should get it herself. It had been a mistake to pay him before she had got out. Lindi lifted the overnight case and put it on the ground. She was about to shut the boot, but instead pulled the case handle up and started walking in the direction that most other people seemed to be going. She didn’t look back, but the sound of the driver cursing gave a satisfying lift to a morning that had already offered its fair share of challenges.

The earliest vendors were already selling an assortment of street food. There were bloodless and dimpled strips of tripe fizzing on a grill. The man cooking picked a piece off the fire, doused it liberally with piri-piri sauce and blew on it before putting it into his mouth. The sickly-sweet smell of rice and mince, cooked over a hissing gas camping stove nearby, reached Lindi and smothered her appetite. Others were unpacking their wares. In a couple of hours they would be selling everything from fake Rolex watches to shoelaces and polyester corsets.