I hope I’m not blowing all Carrie’s cash, and I do, for a moment, think it’s quite stupid of me to not have bothered to check the exchange rate – but things have been different since I met Carrie. I’ve somehow found myself swept along – doing what she’s planned – acting as a substitute for her friend with the broken leg. Perhaps I should get one of these bags for her, too. It would be a nice touch. Another reason for Carrie to trust me. I’m quite enjoying being a kept woman. It’s such a nice break from having to do everything myself – like with Sam; if it wasn’t for me pushing things along, I’d never have got with him in the first place.

There’s an orange bag with a white flower on the front. I unhook it and hand it over for the woman to wrap. ‘Twenty-five thousand for the three,’ I say.

She laughs in my face. Not in a nasty way, in that same childish way that I had noticed in Beijing. She shakes her head. She understands me well enough now, it seems.

‘Thirty thousand,’ she says.

‘Twenty-five,’ I try, again. I’m confident now that I am dealing in pennies, not pounds, but what’s the fun in buying this crap if you don’t even try to knock them down? I think about all the stuff I haggled for in Bangkok. Better stuff than this. ‘Twenty-five,’ I say, dropping the money back into my pocket and making it look like I’m going to walk off.

Her smile dips to low beam. ‘OK, OK. Twenty-five.’ She thrusts the carrier bag containing the bags at me and gestures with her fingers.

I hand her the money, and she hands me another note in change. Pink. Still Genghis. She’s already talking to someone else. I think about trying to say thank you in Mongolian, but realise I have absolutely no idea what the word might be.

Back in the lobby, Carrie is waiting. She has one large carrier bag, and I can see what looks like a huge bag of crisps sticking out of the top. She’s leaning on the wall, and when she stands, there’s the sound of bottles clinking together. I hold my bag up in front of me. ‘Got you a present … Hope the exchange rate isn’t mental.’

She laughs. ‘How much?’

‘Twenty-five … for three.’

She wrinkles her face in concentration. ‘Ten k is about three quid, so … seven-fifty. Three you said? Who’s the third?’ She takes the carrier from me, rummages inside and pulls out the orange bag. ‘Oh, these are perfect,’ she says. ‘Sort of rank, but actually nice.’

‘I got one for your friend … Laura? I thought, well, as I’m taking her place…’