Time was she was almost fawning over him. He’d heard she talked about him as her son-in-law, very well respected as a writer, you know. Fanning could see her trying not to be annoyed at him this past while, however. It was the little things gave her away. A look, a pause, the way she spoke slowly; the subjects she avoided, and the ones she went to too often. Her favourite in that area was loaded, of course: “God the changes we’ve seen in our own lifetime! My oh my, all the jobs and the opportunities out there nowadays.”

Fanning was first off the bus. He legged it up the quays smartly, not at all displeased with the dank, colder air coming at him over the parapet of the River Liffey. His Dublin had always been shabby and smelly, and real. That Dublin was still there if you knew where to look. Fanning had never had time for any nostalgia about Good Old Dublin. The new restaurants and apartments being steadily inserted into parts of the city centre areas that had been no-go areas were welcome. Sometimes, though, their sudden arrivals gave Fanning a feeling of bafflement, and even dismay. Still, he was careful not to fall in range of the running joke in Dublin for at least a decade now: “When did that place go up?”

Fanning was entering Smithfield sooner than he had expected, and within minutes of leaving the quays he was turning the corner in sight of the restaurant. There was Breen in the window, and as per caricature, he was on his mobile. Fanning stepped back, and he took up a spot next to a delivery van. No way would he be caught sitting meekly and waiting for Breen’s phone conversation to end. He’d watch the performance instead.