‘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.

‘But of course you don’t need to move in there, if you’d prefer to find yourself a room somewhere else. I was just trying to help you out; a way of solving your problem,’ Agla said quickly.

‘Shhh, Agla,’ Elísa whispered, and sniffed. ‘Of course I want it. Don’t be daft. I’m just having a bit of a cry.’

Agla wondered what she could say. She had no idea what she had done that would make Elísa cry. That had certainly not been her intention. But before she could figure out some way to reply, Elísa coughed and spoke.

‘Hey!’

‘What?’