‘Oh that? That was only a bit of banter. That’s just Jeremy,’ Tiernan said.

But he looked stricken, as if he’d lost something precious. Gill was all powerful now that he had his five Oscars and I suspected that it was more than Tiernan’s career was worth to bad-mouth him. I needed to change my approach.

‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘You know him better than me, I s’pose.’

‘Yeah, yeah, I do. Known him fifteen years. His bark is worse than his bite. He doesn’t suffer fools, but that’s a lot of why he is where he is. Total perfectionist, like.’

‘Absolutely. His films are amazing.’

‘Aren’t they?’

He sounded like a little boy, in awe of Gill’s talent, in spite of everything.

‘And was he a perfectionist from the beginning? What I mean is, was he like that during the film you worked on with him?’

‘Always,’ Tiernan said. ‘He had an actor lined up to play the male lead in Another Bad Day at the Office but he fired him at the last minute and took the role himself. And it worked brilliantly.’

‘It so did. He has such a gift for casting, doesn’t he? That young girl in it, what’s her name again, Rhona something, is it? She was fabulous.’

‘Rhona Macbride. Wonderful,’ Tiernan said.

‘How did he find her? Some drama school, maybe?’

‘He got her in the school where we did the filming, the Sisters of the Blessed Eucharist Convent in Neale Place, near Dorset Street. Did you not know?’

‘No!’

‘Yeah, it’s Gill legend at this stage. He went into the convent and charmed the head nun, Sister Bernadette, I think she was, and we had the run of the place. They were making us sandwiches and all. He auditioned loads of the schoolgirls and picked Rhona for the lead. The park in the film is actually the nuns’ garden, would you believe?’

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘That’s some story. And did you ever hear what happened to Rhona? She was so talented.’

‘Never heard of her again. She just continued on with school, I presume. I’m pretty sure she lived locally. Probably just got on with her life.’

I wondered if Tiernan knew more than he was saying. But he wasn’t going to break omertà just because I’d bought him lunch. I decided not to push any further. I could talk to him again if I needed to.