‘Shhh, keep your voice down, we’re in a public place and we have to be careful. Only for the weather, we wouldn’t be having this conversation here at all. I’m not saying I don’t believe you. I don’t know enough to say anything at this stage. But I need you to explain why you believe it’s him, and what the emergency is.’

‘Well, her note, for one thing. Deirdre wrote about the academy, and all he was doing after he got the Oscars was thanking the academy, in his acceptance speech and on every chat show after. The academy this and the academy that.’

‘You think she was talking about the Academy of Motion Pictures. But, from what you tell me, Deirdre was dead a couple of months before he won.’

‘Yes. But, like I said, she knew about the nominations – it was the day after they were announced that she left us.’

‘Right. And you’re convinced it was the Academy Deirdre was talking about. Not a school of some kind, even a stage school?’ I said.

He shook his head.

‘No? Okay, I get that, But, Sean, you’ve told me nothing about how she might have met him, let alone anything else.’

‘I know, I know. I haven’t that much to go on. But it all goes back to the film stuff she did. You know how in Transition Year they’re encouraged to branch out and choose projects to work on that they’re interested in as a future career, before they start working for the Leaving Cert and all that. Deirdre chose films, film studies, that sort of thing, and got into the Film Festival doing work experience. The festival was held in October back then. I know she was involved in helping them to choose short films for something to do with the schools’ part of the festival – she was coming home with stacks of videos to watch. And she was raving about a short film by a fella from Dublin called, well, it was him, Gill …’

He picked up his whiskey glass, but didn’t drink from it, and put it back down.

‘She kept talking about him, about how he was definitely going to win a prize. And he did – he won three. It meant nothing to me, but our Deirdre was over the moon about it. She said it was the first time someone had won the audience award, the best Irish and the best International short film. And, if you remember, he was nominated for the best short film in the Oscars after – he didn’t win, but it got him noticed.’