There was something about the chapel itself that I found oddly calming, probably because it had been designed to oddly calm people. The chairs were relatively comfortable and upholstered in a neutral shade of blue, and everything around us was soothing pine and soft uplighting, making it almost possible to ignore the little curtained door with the coffin in front of it.

Much like a wedding, the vicar kicked us off, although out of deference to the Blackwoods’ fairly common brand of C of E secularism, he’d agreed to keep the God stuff to a minimum and focus instead on remembering the life of David Blackwood. Which mostly meant his work, his family, golf, and tireless support of the local Conservative party.

My brain really wanted to maintain a running commentary as a kind of defence mechanism, but given I was sitting one space away from Miriam, who was crying softly and, I thought, sincerely, I wasn’t quite that much of a prick.

Beside me, Oliver was growing increasingly tense, his hands white-knuckled against his knees.

“You still don’t have to do this,” I whispered. “Just tell the vicar you’re too upset. He must get that all the time.”

Oliver bent his head close to mine. “I–I can’t.”

“And now,” said the vicar in what I’m sure must have been his trained funeral voice, “we hand over to David’s eldest son, Oliver, who’s going to say a few words.”

I made a weird grab for Oliver’s hand, like he’d just slipped over a cliff and it was my last chance to catch him. But since this was a funeral, and therefore the force pulling him forward was social convention and not gravity, it didn’t.

Taking the vicar’s place at the lectern, Oliver took a stack of cue cards from his inside pocket and cleared his throat.

I tried to shoot I-love-you-and-I’m-here-for-you lasers out of my eyes, already terrified of how much this was going to hurt him.

The silence somehow got deeper as it lengthened.

The vicar patted him reassuringly on the arm.

Then Oliver straightened his spine, fixed his gaze squarely at the back of the room, and began to speak.

Chapter 32

"DAVID BLACKWOOD," SAID OLIVER, "WAS a loving husband, a devoted father, and an absolute demon on the golf course. We all remember him as…as.…”

He looked down at his cards.

“David Blackwood,” said Oliver, “was a loving husband, a devoted father, and…”

He looked down again. Then he looked up. And his eyes moved over the crowd, pausing just for a second on me before he fixed his attention back on a neutral point.

“David Blackwood,” he said, “was a complicated man, and the last words I said to him were ‘go fuck yourself.’”