But they were up the hill today, halfway along a new row of plots, for Ursula Bonetti’s send off. Her brother arranged the funeral, and by his account she was a terrific lady, full of vitality, from the deli she ran in the West End to the amateur opera and musical theatre, a long line of lovers into her elderly years, but never settled down. So what? Dorothy had the opposite life and where had it got her?

The open grave was surrounded by more than a hundred people, mostly Italian Scots but others too, and many of the women wore brightly coloured dresses. Ursula had requested it, 182refusing to make this a downbeat affair, and she left money for a huge party later at The Balmoral, pricey at the best of times. She’d lived with cancer without treatment for just two months before giving up in her sleep. It was a brave way to live and die, and Dorothy had a pang of envy.

Archie organised the Bonetti brother and the rest of the pallbearers. He was keeping an eye on Dorothy after the incident at Seafield, but she was fine. She felt a kind of detachment, this wasn’t her grief, it was Gianluca Bonetti’s and the rest of Ursula’s family and friends.

The priest intoned over the hole in the ground, the ornate white coffin sitting alongside on the carpet of fake grass the council provided. People rarely did open burials with everyone invited these days, but Dorothy liked it. It was more real, the smell of the earth, the gulls flapping overhead, gusts of wind making a couple of older ladies hold on to their hats. People had been honouring their dead this way for thousands of years, and that thread connected all of humanity.

Dorothy was the driver today so she let Archie orchestrate the service. Not that anything really needed taking care of, if they did their preparation a funeral almost ran itself on the day. She turned her face towards the sun, thin wisps of cotton clouds straggling across the sky.

She thought about Melanie. She wondered if the Chengs would bring the funeral to her. She would be honoured to handle it even though it would be difficult. Dorothy thought about the secrets Melanie’s body might hold for forensics and the pathologist at the Cowgate mortuary. If she would give anything up or if she would be buried with those secrets. Because sometimes we don’t get answers, sometimes we never see the connections that lie under the surface. She looked at Ursula’s coffin surrounded by people. What secrets did Ursula die with? Everyone has an interior life that’s winked out when they die, where does that knowledge go?183