When something unforeseen and previously unimaginable happens, and there are no rulebooks, and no professional guidelines to follow, the best thing to do is nothing. Let the dust settle. See how things pan out. That’s what I tell my clients, and that’s what I was frantically telling myself now. It was time to regroup, take deep breaths, lick wounds, a whole shedful of platitudes and clichés that were easier to dispense than to apply. I felt sick, and sorry too, for the error I’d made in confronting Gill like I had, and for what Alice had said, the shitstorm I had brought on the festival and on her: decent, hard-working Alice. She had always been a good friend to me. It was no wonder she felt angry and hurt and betrayed.
Back in my office, I opened my file and started a note on my conversation with Tiernan, highlighting the names of the convent in Dublin, and of Sister Bernadette. There was no guarantee that either of them were still there but, right after I completed my note on the workshop, I’d try to find out.
A short note it was. Though what had happened at the Firkin Crane had seemed momentous, had been momentous, there was little of substance to say about it, and even less to follow up on. I didn’t even know the real names of Gill’s people, Boyband and Security guy, didn’t know what I’d do with them even if I did. They would never talk to me after this.
And the scene that Gill had directed for the kids and his actions in seeking contact details for a mailing list? Both had looked highly suspect. But with a little distance, half a mile and half an hour since I’d been unceremoniously ejected, I was starting to see that I might have overreacted or, at least, that I could have handled the situation at the workshop differently, handled things differently all along, maybe. I was thinking about what Alice had said, that I had damaged the Film Festival, and her too, because of what looked like an inexplicable obsession with Jeremy Gill. Maybe if I had been less of a lone wolf, if I had sought advice from my boss at the start, if I hadn’t raced headlong into the investigation, if I had thought it through first, maybe that would have been better? To have ended the case before it began?
But, deep down, I didn’t believe any of that. If I was right about Gill, he had to be stopped and it seemed like nobody else was even minimally concerned about him. From what I had seen of his behaviour over the last couple of days, it was extraordinary that nobody had raised queries about him before. How was he getting away with it? In public, he had shown himself to be a bully and a misogynist. But, after it all, I was the one in the stocks, not him. If I believed in conspiracy theories, I might think there was a conspiracy of silence about Gill. At the very least, he seemed to inspire a sort of groupthink. What was it Tiernan had said? ‘That’s just Jeremy.’ No matter what he did, he had people around to explain and excuse him. And that was how Deirdre had felt too, wasn’t it? That she’d never be believed?
I refused to be one of the enablers. I had regrets about the consequences for Alice, and for our friendship. And I was concerned about the festival, about the bad reputation it might develop if Gill started mouthing off about it to other people in the film business. But I had to keep going. The way I saw it, I had no choice.
Just then, there was a knock at my office door. It was Tina.
‘Em, sorry, Finn, I just thought … em … I should tell you … what I mean to say is … em … like, sorry, but do you know you’re trending on Twitter?’
I could hardly bear to look, but I logged into my Twitter account on my desktop. It looked like every one of the students at the workshop had tweeted their disapproval of @Finnfitz and @corkfilmfest, #WTF, #lawyerbitch. And their approval of @JeremyGill, #weluvujezza. Which @JeremyGill had retweeted, #couldntpossiblycomment. Along with 483 of his three million followers. Not a huge number. But enough to get me trending.
I was appalled.
And things were about to get worse.
My desk phone rang.
‘Boardroom. Now,’ Gabriel McGrath said.