The car park, spread out below her, was crammed with vehicles, their assorted but distinct colours coming together in a vast mosaic. Every now and then, a car inching its way into a bay or gingerly heading for the exit would catch the sun and and reflect it back.

Airport compounds around the world are like a no man’s land separating the culturally neutral and uniformly branded malls of the terminal buildings from the diverse and sometimes chaotic cities they serve. O.R. Tambo International was no different. Ahead of her, on the perimeter of the car park, Lindi could see vast advertising hoardings. The mobile phones or the latest fuel-efficient cars they were peddling were exactly the ones that were being foisted on hapless consumers back in Britain, except that these were peopled with bronzed faces (nothing so offensive as a truly black face). Around her the wait-your-turn commercial discipline imposed inside the terminal was beginning to break down, giving way to an altogether more robust form of commerce. The porters’ liveried uniforms implied a certain decorum but their insistent appeals to carry Lindi’s bag came from desperation sharpened in the harsh training ground of life in one of Johannesburg’s townships.

‘Taxi, you want a taxi? I know a good-good driver,’ said the porter nearest Lindi. ‘He’s my brother, he going to get you home sharp-sharp,’ the man said, before curling his tongue and expelling a shrill whistle aimed towards the car park.

This as-yet-tentative transaction caught the attention of another man in uniform. He was large with a belly straining at a belt that was only barely visible beneath the rest of his bulk. He wore his uniform like a badge of superiority. He ambled towards Lindi. From a few yards away he started shouting in Zulu at the porter, who retreated a little.

‘I’m sorry, madam, but those chaps are tsotsis. They will take all your money,’ he said. ‘The airport authorities recommend you take the licensed cabs from the rank over there and I will organise it all for you personally.’

Despite the many warnings she’d been given about being careful at the airport – the most recent delivered in rather stern language by the BBC’s office manager – Lindi decided she was not going to reward the officious and bloated attendant with what would be his latest victory over the porter, still hovering in the wings. She noticed now that the porter’s trousers were held up by a length of twine and bunched up around the waist. ‘Thank you, but I’m quite capable of looking after myself,’ she said curtly.

‘Don’t mind him, madam.’ It was the porter. ‘He likes to scare tourists. You see how fat he is – that’s because all the taxi drivers give him some per cent. He’s eating pies all day.’ At this all the other porters laughed. The attendant looked back; he knew he was the butt of the joke.