He said, ‘I keep thinking …’ and faded off, realising he’d been about to tell her about Beauden, wanting to get it off his mind through discussion, but he decided he shouldn’t. It wasn’t for him to talk about. He changed direction and said, ‘I keep running through all these details, and I don’t know if they’re relevant or not.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like how Deborah Forsyth said her son died, and the fact her husband was bringing her flowers but then he just walked out the door and hasn’t come back. I’ve never thought so much about flowers in my life.’

She smiled faintly. ‘Let’s think about it tomorrow. I need to get through this first.’

Spoken like a true compartmentaliser. He looked out the window, lights along Sunset Boulevard so warm and bright you’d think nothing around here could ever go wrong for anyone.

Guests for the Sean Hogan interview weren’t announced in advance, but the show was obviously a source of some controversy: there was a handful of protesters—mainly young people with brightly dyed hair—outside the studio gate on West Olive Avenue. Vincent saw placards denouncing the host as a Nazi, and the show as fascist propaganda or something. He couldn’t quite read the whole message.

The limousine was waved past the security booth, and the driver let them out at one of the production offices. There was a minder outside waiting for them—a trim and tautly shirted young guy with the android-ish facial symmetry of Hollywood. He took Vincent and Erin by golf cart through the parking lot and under the famous water tower with its famous logo and down to one of the soundstage buildings—a cavernous old warehouse as big as an aircraft hangar.

One corner had been fitted out to form a theatre. Audience seating sloped down to a stage where two chairs and a low table were set up under lights. It seemed like a major operation, for a podcast. Their minder took them through to the green room and introduced them to Hogan. He was fortyish and maybe five–eight, yoga-lean, with a quiet and placid demeanour, as if his whole being were anchored to deep knowledge. Vincent stood there while Erin and Hogan exchanged knitted-brow insights about the state of the world, and then an assistant diverted Hogan to another room. Someone else took Erin off to make-up, and Vincent sat eating cheese and nuts from a platter set up on a coffee table. There was a mug holding ballpoint pens with THE SEAN HOGAN SHOW printed on one side, and Erin’s name and the date on the other. Actually, tomorrow’s date. He wondered if they’d picked up on the error. Vincent pocketed one anyway. Maybe he could sell it on eBay, make his fortune.