Once she had finished yelling, she tried to get her bearings and keep track of what was going on around her as best she could. It had felt like they had driven around in circles for a long time before she was transferred to another car. She had been treated gently. Someone took her arm and a hand guided her head so she didn’t crack it against the roof of the car as she was pushed into the seat. In this car she could hear two men talking, but was unable to make anything out over the loud music they were playing. Then there was a long drive, some of it clearly on an unmade road, as the car shook and juddered. But now, after a long time in this dark cell, she was beginning to doubt the evidence of her own senses; her mind seemed to present different versions of her travels. Maybe that second car hadn’t been a car at all, but an aircraft, and the gravel road not an unmade track but turbulence in the air. It wasn’t just the signs in English that indicated they were in America rather than Iceland, but the shape of the door handle, the little dark window with its bars, the carpet on the floor and the smell of disinfectant that flowed into the travel toilet in the corner when she pressed the button on it. There was nothing she could put her finger on, but there was something American about the strange blend of menthol and flowers.

It took some time before her eyes became accustomed again to the gloom. Once she could again make out shades of grey in the darkness, she crawled over to the tray and sat down by it. The food was the only thing that had changed during the three or four days she had been here. She groped cautiously for the tray to see what was on offer today. The first couple of times she had ignored food in protest against this bizarre captivity, but by the third time she had been so ravenous that she had swooped on the food so eagerly that she had upset the glass of orange juice, and now there was a patch by the door that was so sticky, she stuck to it if she sat there.