She wondered whether she ought to make the two trips through the outer gate and up to the road, wait with her belongings there, but it would be a nuisance to have to keep ringing the buzzer to be allowed in and out; it would only attract attention that she could do without. After a while she checked her watch. Elísa should have been here to meet her twenty minutes ago. The suspicion crawled into her mind that maybe Elísa wasn’t coming. She decided to give it another ten minutes; half an hour would account for a traffic jam or having to recharge the Tesla. She had no desire to go back inside the prison building. She should have had the lawyer collect her, she told herself. He would have brought her phone and some decent clothes. Instead she was standing here like an idiot in tracksuit bottoms, not even able to call herself a taxi.

Finally, with heavy steps, she walked back into the building. She could feel every fibre of her body rebelling, sending stomach acid rushing to her throat and giving her an instant flash of heartburn as she opened the door and stepped back inside the prison.

‘Could you call a taxi for me?’ she asked.

Sigurgeir, the officer at the desk, nodded, the look on his face saying that he could have told her Elísa wouldn’t be here to pick her up. It was just as well that he was on duty and therefore wasn’t able to repeat his offer to drive her down to the probation hostel at Vernd, as that would have been one humiliation too much.

When the taxi driver arrived, he got out of his car by the outer gate, ready to help with her luggage, but sat back inside as soon as he recognised her. No doubt it had already been all over the media that she was about to be released on probation, and there was also no doubt that the entire nation agreed that it was far too early. The boot opened with a click, and she lifted her box and case into it before sitting in the back seat and bidding him a good morning. The driver didn’t return her greeting, but asked abruptly where she wanted to go. Banksters didn’t deserve courtesy, she reflected.