‘Don’t cry,’ she whispered. ‘It just annoys me, seeing that interest piling up.’

‘I’ll never have the money to pay you back,’ Elísa said and wiped away the tear from her cheek, much to Agla’s relief.

She was about to tell her that it didn’t matter – which was entirely true – when she felt Elísa’s hot hand on her leg, too high up her leg.

Once more, Agla felt as if she had been punched; in fact this time it felt more like a stab. How could she have been so stupid as to try and help this person? She never seemed to fail to wreck any friendly overtures with some clumsy response.

‘I don’t know what the hell you think I am!’ she rasped, then got to her feet and sounded the buzzer. It had been months since all these locked doors had got on her nerves, but since this girl’s arrival, she’d truly felt like a prisoner – constantly prevented from escaping Elísa’s attentions.

25

María was shredding the back page of the Fréttablaðið freesheet newspaper into little strips. There was no real point to this activity, it was just an outlet for the frustration that had welled up inside her when she saw the news item stating that the ethics committee of the journalists’ union had censured her for The Squirrel’s misreporting of a story. She had been certain that this had been forgotten long ago. It was true; she had jumped the gun, running a story before it was confirmed. But she had then deleted the post and apologised to all those concerned. She knew that someone had notified the ethics committee, but had no idea that they had examined the case. It came as a complete surprise to see this surfacing now, more than a year later.

She got to her feet, went to the bathroom and turned on the shower, realising as she did so that Maggi would see the news item. He always made a point of reading Fréttablaðið. He would be sitting over his organic porridge somewhere, reflecting on how much of a disappointment she had been to him. As she stared at her own tired face in the mirror, she had, once again, the nagging feeling that she had also disappointed herself.

She had once been so sure about her own qualities: her sense and determination; the fact that she didn’t let anyone pull the wool over her eyes. Ahead of her she’d thought she had a bright future in the justice system, plus a long, contented marriage with Maggi, and maybe two or three children.

She was gripped by a sudden longing to call Maggi, to try and work out from his tone of voice whether or not he had read the item about her, but she managed to control the urge to pick up the phone. He had asked her to stop calling him. He couldn’t stand hearing any more tearful apologies, and in reality she understood his position completely. When she wallowed in self-pity, she couldn’t stand herself either.