‘What business have you there?’

‘I’m visiting a friend.’

‘You’re from where?’

‘London in UK,’ she said, with as much finality as she could muster.

‘Okay, thank you.’ He nodded and moved off to join the others.

There was an entirely different atmosphere in the long-distance coach terminus, Park City Transit Centre. Instead of the purposeful coming and going in the Metrorail station, where people were fleet of foot and travelling light to a day’s work in the big city, here they were burdened with possessions, people taking what they could and heading out of town. It was the difference between those keen to arrive and those desperate to leave.

Bulawayo, Mutare, Maputo, Harare, Lusaka – the destination boards reminded her of childhood days when she and Ralph would pore over the family atlas and imagine adventures in exotic places.

There was a long queue in front of 4A, the departure gate for the 8 a.m. coach that went to Nelspruit in Mpumalanga, then on to Komartipoort, the border crossing into Mozambique. She was glad the BBC office manager had advised her to make a reservation. She still had to collect her ticket.

There was an even longer queue outside the Translux ticket office. It started with a semblance of order in front of the fingermarked glass partition at the counter, then fanned out. There must have been a couple of hundred people, perhaps double that – Lindi couldn’t tell. And more of them were joining by the minute. Somebody’s luggage, a heavy-duty plastic bag, was being passed, like a crowd surfer at a concert, towards the front. She was nearly knocked over as a young man was ejected from the queue by two women. Lindi didn’t have to speak Shangaan to understand that their vocabulary was both colourful and robust. It was now 7.15: she had less than forty-five minutes.

She was thinking about trying to push through the crowd when she felt an arm reach over her shoulder to shove the man in front of her out of the way. He tripped over the luggage on the floor and fell against some of the others who, in turn, threw him back upright. It was the soldier again.

‘Move! Move!’ he shouted at the crowd, and then, ‘Follow me,’ to Lindi.

There was a moment, just a millisecond, when Lindi thought she ought to protest – but she needed that ticket. People looked on sullenly as the soldier carved his way towards the front of the queue, Lindi in his wake. As he emerged at the very front, the man who was next in line at the counter turned round instinctively to hold his place and pushed back, realising too late who the queue jumper was. The soldier grabbed him by the neck and shouted, ‘Get out, get out of here!’

‘I’m sorry, baas. I’m sorry. I just want my ticket. I have waited since three hours.’ The man was pleading.