Sa Bhaile — My Place. Staff would speak Gaelic if requested, was the boast, or the “brand,” but diners could expect a savvy, cool dining experience in what had been a livery, a storehouse, a bicycle factory, and then lain abandoned for decades, and was now a backdrop for celebrity snapshots. The lettering on the restaurant sign was harsh modern, doubtless intended as a statement to that effect.

But he really should be thinking about his pitch, the three points, and no more. Three was a natural number for people to remember, a trinity, just like the old Irish proverbs. Breen sure as hell wasn’t one to take notes. He didn’t have to. The higher up in the firmament you were, the more causal things seemed to be. A whim, a mood, a coincidence, pure luck: they were the reigning deities in the world of film. The true talent had never been the actual writing.

Fanning had been to book launches here. No-one he had met those times seemed to be interested in the fact that ten years ago this area was where you’d come to fence stuff, to rent a gun, to buy heroin.

Oh oh: Breen had spotted him. He held up his hand, his fingers spread, and then detached the mobile slightly from his ear. He issued the smile and the eye-roll that Fanning had predicted, and went back to his call. Fanning had mustered a smile, and he slowly nodded his understanding.

His chest felt overfilled. He took a few steps toward the door of the restaurant, and made a last effort to get his thoughts in order. With Breen you basically had one minute, and it had to be clear and simple, the less said the better. Breen wouldn’t admit to calling it a pitch, of course. It was always “a chat,” or a “bring me up to date.” He wanted to just gossip, or tell a joke, or drop names and tell anecdotes.

Fanning let his breath out slowly and drew in another just the same. He was conscious of his smile, and maintaining it. Smiling alone, the act of it, made one relax, he had read.