‘I was just going to have coffee with my friend and she wanted to stop off at a little party,’ Elísa said. ‘Those fucking pills are no good for me. They just knock me right out and I feel like I’m suffocating. I’m a lot happier with speed.’

She struggled to eat, saying she was feeling nauseous, but Agla encouraged her, heaping praise on her for every mouthful she swallowed and every sip of coffee she drunk. It was almost four o’clock, and they had to be at Vernd before six. There was no way that Elísa could turn up clearly drugged and in filthy clothes. Agla left her swathed in a towel on the sofa and rooted through her wardrobes. Most of her clothes were too big now, and would be far too big for Elísa, who was ten centimetres shorter than her and as thin as a rake. She picked up a shapewear top and a pair of leggings, went back to the living room and handed them to Elísa.

‘Put these on,’ she said. ‘We’ll stop off at a shop on the way and get you some clothes.’

It was a quarter to six when Agla swung into Laugateigur after calling at a clothes shop where she had hurriedly bought jeans, a shirt and a leather jacket, and explained to the stunned staff that Elísa, still half asleep and dazed, would wear them out of the shop.

A couple of cars marked with various media logos were parked outside the probation hostel. Agla took a deep breath.

‘You remember what we’re going to do?’ she asked, and when Elísa didn’t answer, she jabbed her with one elbow. ‘We’re here, Elísa, at Vernd. Here’s the bag. You remember what to do?’

‘Yeah, I remember,’ Elísa said. ‘Hold the bag in front of me, say I’ve been throwing up all day, ask if I have to be there for dinner or if I can go upstairs and lie down.’

She opened the car door and walked up to the house. Agla was relieved to see she was no longer slouching. The photographers snapped a couple of pictures of her, as if for show, and turned to Agla as she got out of the car. The reporters crowded around her, and Agla wrapped herself tightly in the ash-grey overcoat, as if it could protect her from the flood of questions and the clatter of clicking cameras.

67

‘If you want to take tricks and win the game, then it’s best if you call trumps,’ Sonja advised Tómas as he hesitated, concentrating on the cards in his hand. ‘Even if you don’t have great cards, stay high so you keep the lead. If you wait and see, then you’re playing against someone else’s call, and that way you’ll always lose.’