The Birthday Weekend by Zoe Miller

Author:Zoe Miller [Miller, Zoe]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: FIC030000, FIC027110, FH, FR
Publisher: Hachette Books Ireland
Published: 2024-03-06T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Stella

A mood of impending gloom deepens in The Lookout as the afternoon wears on. The group had returned from Dunmullen, becoming subdued when Stella brought them up to date with the recovery plan. Now Maisie and Caz are drinking endless coffee at the kitchen island, glancing out the windows every so often into the shadows settling around the misty afternoon. From the front windows, pinpricks of light indicate a steady stream of traffic coming around the bend in the peninsula before they disappear, swallowed by the folds in the landscape. Rex, Eddie and Janet are on the sofas talking quietly among themselves. Britt has already set out tea lights, matches and torches, ready and waiting on the hall table.

Someone’s mobile shrills – Rex’s. He disappears into the hall to take the call and comes back in presently, beckoning for Stella to join him, a flustered look on his face.

‘What’s up?’ she asks, alarmed at his expression.

He puts his hands on her shoulders. ‘I feel terrible about this, but I’m sorry, I can’t join you on the quays this evening.’

She almost slumps against him. ‘Is that all? I thought from your face something was seriously wrong.’

‘It is, in so far as there’s been a messy security breach in the Passport Office’s IT system and I have been called up to help sort it out. That means I have to put in a few hours’ work. But, look, if you really need me, I’ll try to get someone else on my team to step in and lead it.’

‘No, it’s fine. You’ll be here when I get back. I’ll have Britt, and Lucinda’s friends with me.’ Even if one of them is her troll, they couldn’t get up to much down at the quays this evening.

Britt heats a large pot of vegetable soup at half past four, Rex dishing it out before he heads back upstairs to work. Tadhg has already delivered a large cottage pie and a vegan lasagne to be reheated when they arrive back from the quayside. At five o’clock the text from Imelda comes through, and at half past five, Stella’s legs almost buckle beneath her when two cars draw up outside the house.

Hugh arrives into the hall, where they are in various stages of donning coats, hats and scarves.

‘Everybody ready?’ he asks. Stella senses he is directing the question at her.

She nods, even though she feels outside her body, which is a mess of painful nerve endings inside.

‘Is this it?’ he asks, scanning the group.

‘Yep,’ she says. ‘Rex can’t come. He has to work.’

He lifts an eyebrow. ‘Right then, Stella, you’re in the car with me, and we’ll take two more.’

‘Britt,’ she says. ‘And Caz?’

Caz takes a breath and Stella senses she, too, is feeling the dreadful enormity of it all. ‘Sure,’ she says, stepping forward.

‘The rest of ye can travel in the next car with Imelda,’ Hugh says. ‘When you’re on the quays, please stay together at all times. I’ll show you where to go. There are a few people around.

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