That was typical of both María and Bleep. It was as if both of them had conspired to break the connection before Agla could come back with a suitable riposte. This Bleep software wasn’t as good as Skype or FaceTime, but had the advantage of being encrypted so that any trace of a conversation was erased as soon as it ended. As far as Agla was concerned, the prison authorities had no need to be concerned over things they knew nothing about.

Agla checked the clock. It was finally time to call Elísa. She rang the bell and when Ewa appeared, she let her know that she needed to make a call. She waited by the phone in the hallway for a little while, until Ewa had gone over to chat to Vigdís, so neither of them would be listening in.

‘Hæ. How are you?’ she whispered when Elísa answered.

‘Agla, you’re awesome! Your lawyer brought an iPhone 7 for me! You’re something else; any old phone would have been enough for me. And the car! Jesus! I hardly dared get in. This isn’t real! You should have seen their faces at Vernd when the guy came and handed me the keys.’

‘How are you feeling?’ Agla broke in.

‘Well, just great. It’s half past five and I’m fine, just waiting for dinner. I’m on the rota to wash up tonight, and then I’ll go for a drive around town with my friend. We’ll go and get ourselves ice cream somewhere, but I promise I won’t let her eat it in the car, so don’t worry.’

‘I’m not worried,’ Agla said, although that wasn’t completely true. The car wasn’t a concern, but the thought of Elísa going for a drive with a friend troubled her. She hoped it wasn’t Katrín, the former squeeze; and she hoped it wasn’t one of Elísa’s druggie friends, who might be a bad influence on her.

‘Tomorrow I’ll start looking properly for a place to live. It’ll be easier now I can meet people face to face, because everyone who advertised a room for rent online was a bit strange when I said I was calling from Hólmsheiði…’

‘But you have the house,’ Agla said. ‘You can stay there for as long as you want.’

‘Oh.’ Elísa fell silent for a moment. ‘You were serious about me moving in there?’

‘Of course,’ Agla said, surprised at how Elísa had misunderstood her.

‘I thought you were just doing that so I could be registered somewhere, so I’d be allowed out on probation.’

‘No, my sweet. You can have the house. I have an apartment somewhere else, so the place is empty. And it’s crazy for you to be holed up in a room when there’s a house going begging.’

Elísa said nothing and Agla waited with growing trepidation. That wretched house was probably too much for any woman, and like a fool, she was trying to pass it on to Elísa. She would probably be no keener on the house than Sonja had.