The overcrowded shuttle bus, filled with the odour of bodies that had not washed for more than twenty hours, lurched to a halt outside the terminal building and spilled its passengers into the simmering afternoon. She headed quickly indoors in search of air-conditioning. There was none. If anything, it was hotter inside, the air thick and unbreathable. She was assailed by the sights and sounds and smells of China. People everywhere, as if every flight of the day had arrived at once, passengers fighting for places in the long queues forming at lines of immigration desks. Even in this international transit hall, Margaret drew odd looks from strange oriental faces who regarded her as the strange face in their midst. And, indeed, she was. Curling fair hair held back from her face in clasps, and tumbling over her shoulders. Ivory pale skin and clear blue eyes. The contrast with the black-haired, dark-eyed uniformity of the Han Chinese could not have been starker. She felt her stress level rising and took a deep breath.

“Maggot Cambo! Maggot Cambo!” A shrill voice pierced the hubbub. She looked to see a square, uniformed woman of indeterminate middle age pushing brusquely through the advancing passengers holding aloft a piece of card with the name MAGRET CAMPELL scrawled upon it in clumsy capital letters. It took Margaret a moment to connect the name she saw, and the one being called out, with herself.

“Uh . . . I think you might be looking for me,” she shouted above the noise, and thought how foolish that sounded. Of course they were looking for her. The square woman swivelled and glared at her through thick, horn-rimmed glasses.

“Doctah Maggot Cambo?”

“Margaret,” Margaret said. “Campbell.”

“Okay, you gimme your passport.”

Margaret fumbled for the blue, eagle-crested passport in her bag, but hesitated in handing it over. “And you are . . . ?”

“Constable Li Li Peng.” She pronounced it Lily Ping. And she straightened her back, the better to display the senior constable’s three stars on the epaulets of her khaki-green short-sleeve shirt. Her skipped green hat with its yellow braid and its gold, red and blue crest of the Ministry of Public Security was slightly too large and pushed the square cut of her fringe down over the tops of her glasses. “Waiban has appointed me to look after you.”

“Waiban?”

“Foreign affairs office of your danwei.”

Margaret felt sure she should know these things. No doubt it would be there, somewhere, in all the briefing material they had given her. “Danwei?”

Lily’s irritation was ill concealed. “Your work unit—at the university.”

“Oh. Right.” Margaret felt she had revealed too much ignorance already and handed over her passport.

Lily glanced at it briefly. “Okay. I take care of immigration and we get your bags.”