Earlier that day, in a rented flat in Phibsborough with the blinds down, five people were getting ready to leave.
They did not use names. They had not used names since the boat.
The woman by the window was checking a phone that had never been used for anything else. Two of the men were at the kitchen table in silence. The youngest of them, a man of about twenty-five with a cheap haircut and a festival lanyard round his neck, stood in the middle of the room with a bag on his shoulder and did not put it down.
"It's a festival," he said.
Nobody answered him.
"It's a festival. In the street. There'll be children there. I've seen the programme. There's a puppet show at half seven."
The man by the door was older than the rest and had been in charge since the boat. He looked at the young man for a long moment.
"You've had the instructions," he said.
"I know I've had the—"
