A bus to Port Dickson had its engine running and Fleur hurried across the square and climbed on. It was half-full of people and of fowl alive and dead from market. Old women with string baskets full of soft scarlet tomatoes and small local bananas sat and watched her impassively.

The driver took her offered Malaysian ringgits and poured coins back into her hands as he too looked at her curiously. She did not look poor and she was not a young backpacker, why did she not catch a taxi?

Despite the running engine the bus did not move off and Fleur realised the driver was waiting for it to fill. Her heart sank. The heat trickled down the inside of her dress and she was just checking whether she had enough money for a taxi when, at last, with a blast of its horn the bus slowly rattled out of the small town onto the main road, kicking up dust and sounding as if any moment it might splutter to a halt.

The driver let people out of the doors at regular intervals and they melted into the shady trees that lined the road, off towards their kampongs, into little clearings in the jungle, carrying their live chickens and fruit and brightly coloured rolls of cloth.

At times, the bus stopped and waited on the highway to pick up people, and Fleur thought it was the longest, hottest, smelliest journey she had ever taken. When at last they rattled into Port Dickson she felt sick with relief.

The taxi drivers watched her, but she had no idea where to go. She closed her eyes for a moment and when she opened them they focused on a hoarding. Selamat Datang to Blue Lagoon Hotel.

‘Blue Lagoon Hotel, please,’ she said to the taxi driver. It would do for tonight while she got her bearings.

At the reception desk she told the sultry Malaysian receptionist that her husband was coming later with her luggage. The girl took ages checking her form, looking at her passport, and finally smiled sweetly and wished her a happy stay with Lagoon Hotel.

In her room Fleur looked down at the curved manmade lagoon with its carefully positioned palm trees. It was not very blue. All these years later, how was she to recognise the coastline and the wild places she had walked with the twins? This hotel was too near the town, the colonial rest houses had been further down the coast, she was sure of this.

She went down in the lift and ordered herself a strong coffee. Then she crossed the road to the little row of dusty shops. She bought herself odd underclothes with her card, two cheap tee shirts, a length of material to use as a sarong and a batik bag to put them all in. She went to the pharmacy and bought a toothbrush, toothpaste, soap and shampoo. Some instinct also made her buy some medical supplies.

She walked round the man-made lagoon onto the beach and looked both ways but did but recognise any landmark. Nothing was familiar. All was high-rise hotels and large swimming pools. The sea looked grey and uninviting. The afternoon sun beat down on her relentlessly and soaked her clothes. She felt sick and giddy. Going back up in the lift she had to hang on to the sides as waves of dizziness swung over her.