She looked up Meteorite Metals and found that it offered storage facilities for metals. She then went to the smelter’s annual report for the previous year and saw that practically all of that year’s aluminium production was recorded as an asset – it hadn’t been sold. This was looking highly suspicious. Agla’s conclusion was that the Icelandic smelter was producing aluminium but then simply shipping it overseas for storage.

Agla clicked on a folder on her desktop marked Filed Invoices, which was where she hid the Tor browser, which she used when she didn’t want the prison authorities to know what she was doing. She keyed in her password, sent María a message on the Bleep app and waited for a moment to find out if she was online.

Agla: There’s no sense in producing aluminium for years and leaving it in storage.

María: Isn’t it a known business strategy to sit on assets to push the price up?

Agla: Sure. But the price hasn’t risen.

María: Weird.

Agla: Yep.

María: You saw Meteorite? What’s that?

Agla: Seems to be for metal storage.

María: Have you Googled it?

Agla: Yes. Nice front page, but probably not much behind it.

María: You mean it’s a fake company?

Agla: Could be. Could you fly over and take a look?

María: WTF? What would I do?

Agla: Go there. Check that the company exists. Just keep all your receipts.

There was a long pause before María replied.

María: OK.

Agla wondered whether María would find out anything interesting. It was very likely that Meteorite Metals didn’t actually exist and was just a brass-plate company used to hide a trail of money. Agla was familiar with how all this worked; she even owned a few brass-plate companies herself. She suspected that the scheme had been designed so that all the costs of producing the aluminium were borne by the smelter in Iceland, while the revenue went direct to a parent company overseas – which therefore paid zero tax in Iceland. She knew the kinds of tricks that could be played to make this happen. Whatever really lay behind all this, the scheme bore all Ingimar’s hallmarks.

Elísa met her as she returned to the women’s wing.

‘Hey, I’m really sorry about last night,’ she said, following Agla to her cell.

Agla’s only response was to shut her cell door behind her, but as soon as she turned round, the door opened again and Elísa put her head inside.

‘A closed door means that someone prefers to be alone,’ Agla said drily.

‘Yeah, I know. House rules and all that. I just…’ Elísa fell silent and slipped further inside. ‘I just wanted to explain, y’see, I’m not used to people doing anything for me without wanting something in return.’

Agla sighed. Her own experience was much the same. Everyone wanted something for their efforts.

‘All I want is to be left alone,’ she said. ‘Shut the door as you leave.’