The one thing that consoled him was the knowledge that he hadn’t had to endure one himself, a tiny white coffin and a grief that could never have been assuaged as long as he lived. Bonnie was alive, growing and learning and developing from a baby into a little girl. Alive and well.

Patrick had to swallow the lump in his throat. The woman next to him, a skinny glamorous redhead in her forties, handed him a tissue.

‘Oh, thanks, no actually I’m fine,’ he said, coughing. ‘Something in my eye. Really.’

She rolled her eyes at him and continued to proffer the Kleenex, so he took it and stuffed it straight into his pocket, with a sheepish smile.

‘Shocking, isn’t it,’ said the woman. ‘Were you a friend of Sean’s?’

Patrick nodded vaguely, hoping that she wouldn’t press for more details of how he knew Sean. ‘Were you?’ he deflected.

‘I’m a work colleague of Helen’s – a fellow editor,’ she said. ‘Liz Wilkins. Haven’t seen much of her since she went off on maternity leave a few years ago, but of course I called her when I heard what had happened to poor Frankie. What they must have gone through! So I gather—’ she dropped her voice conspiratorially ‘—it was Sean’s ex-wife who kidnapped her, and she’s dead now too?’

It sounded so simple when you put it like that, thought Patrick, nodding again and hoping she would go away. But she carried on, mistaking his silence for collusion. ‘Thank God it wasn’t those nutters who took the other kids, though, that would’ve been worse. And thank God little Frankie is OK. I mean, look at her, the little dote. But now she has to grow up without a dad. He was such a lovely man . . .’

Liz’s voice cracked and tears filled her eyes. Patrick wordlessly handed the tissue back to her, thinking you don’t know the half of it. To his great relief, the noodling organ ceased and a young vicar strode in and stood in front of Sean’s coffin before Liz could continue her lamentation.

‘Welcome to you all, on this very sad occasion,’ the vicar said, spreading his arms wide to herald the start of the service.

At one point Alice got up to read a poem, that one that always got read at funerals about stopping the clocks. Four Weddings and a Funeral had a lot to answer for, thought Patrick, aching with sympathy for the girl as she stumbled through the first few lines before bursting into uncontrollable sobs and running out of the church, Larry close behind her. The congregation could hear her crying through the double doors that led to the church toilets, and it started several others off. The vicar smiled insincerely and finished reading the poem himself.