‘The well-known concert promoter Danny Mansfield, founder of the Big Rock Festival, who was married to Ms Campbell from 1993 to 1995, sent us the following statement: “I’m devastated. I’ve lost a great friend and the world has lost a great talent.” Mr Mansfield went on to ask that the media respect his family’s need for privacy at this difficult time.’

His secretary had emailed Neil the same thing, and they’d run it in the piece. He was surprised anyone except himself remembered the marriage. He was surprised Danny Mansfield did. He suspected the secretary had copied and pasted the statement from someone else’s death, someone else’s tribute.

It seemed like an awful lot of coverage for someone who’d only had one hit single and a couple of critically panned albums. The benefits of living in a small country, he supposed.

Neil flicked the telly off, picked up his phone and refreshed the newspaper website again. It was up. He copied the link and tweeted: My obituary for Clio Campbell. A great friend and an even greater singer.

Then he searched for her name. For some reason it seemed like an awful lot of young women were talking about her and linking to videos of ‘Rise Up’ on YouTube. Nobody else had published an obituary yet, so they were ahead of the curve there at least.

Great.

He wondered how you would translate that word each time.

She was a singer who I vaguely remember liking in the Nineties, and she once sang at a function I was invited to.

I met her three times in ten years and never had that much to say to her.

She had a lovely voice and was a massive pain in the arse.

She was a maddening, impulsive, humourless force of nature, who changed her mind every five minutes, never stuck to plans, and would pick people up and drop them again as and when she needed them. And I fucking well loved her.

He’d shouted that last bit, he realized. His flat was silent in response. The traffic outside the window hooted appreciatively.

Then he was on his hands and knees, raking through the CD storage case he kept in the cupboard. There it was. The Northern Lass, signed in black marker around her face, the letters tangled in her hair.

For Neil.

C X

He hadn’t used the CD player on his old stereo in a few years, was surprised it still gulped the disc obediently. Lying on the sofa as the strings led him into ‘Ae Fond Kiss’, as Clio smoked and shimmered around the room, he found he’d reached for his phone and was thumbing. Twenty-six notifications already. He switched the fucking thing off, shut his eyes, let his ears do the breathing for a while.

Had we never loved sae kindly,

Had we never loved sae blindly,

Never met – or never parted,

We would ne’er be broken-hearted.