Clio Campbell was a very close friend of mine, someone I’d known for more than thirty years. I was still in shock when I wrote her obituary yesterday. Please look out for my article as part of @ScottishStandard’s Weekend Magazine tribute to this extraordinary woman, this Saturday.

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He’d felt dirty, taken a long lunch break at the Albannach, chewing and chewing a big white-bread cheese sandwich that had come out of the beer fridge wrapped in cling film. He hadn’t really worked out what to say yet, in this piece, this big piece to heal all ills, this properly fitting tribute.

The fly was still buzzing about his desk when he got back in.

‘Neil! Mate. Mate. Where you been? Breaking news on the Clio Campbell story – need to get your take on it right away, online. Pronto. As our arts man. Our music guy.’

Back at his desk, her name typed into the search bar via autocomplete, he let the updates spill over him. Some rapper in London had announced he’d been in a six-year relationship with Clio. He was young, handsome and Indian-looking – it took Neil’s whisky-smirred brain a few minutes to realize it was that guy who’d been up for the Mercury Prize a few years ago. In fact, he even had the album.

‘So. So. Mate. What do we reckon, eh?’ Neil wondered whether Craig was actually doing any work on any other sections of the paper this week. ‘Need a quick story up there right now with your reaction – his music, in context. I mean, he’s a big name, right? This is going to blow it wide open. I’m thinking for the Saturday feature, maybe a page on “The Many Loves of Clio Campbell”, eh? I mean, this guy, the MP guy, the music-festival guy, wasn’t there a sleazy-cop thing too?’

‘I think the women you made— I apologized to this morning might have something to say about that, Craig? Shouldn’t we be concentrating on who she was as a person, after all? Current climate?’

Craig swatted the very idea of it away, hand slicing through the feeble air con.

‘Like you said, mate. Public interest. So, quick three hundred or whatever just now, then let’s see if we can get a quote from this-guy-what’s-his-name in Saturday’s. Good lad. Let’s get to it – next half hour, yeah?’

Carol, Neil’s neighbour across the desk, who kept her head down on the local council beat for the evening paper, had looked round her monitor to smile sympathetically.

‘Wouldn’t be happening if the powers that be hadn’t thought the role of Features Editor was dispensable, would it now. You need a coffee, pet?’

She’d made it strong and it felt like a lifeline, a small gesture of solidarity from an old comrade. As though the paper itself, the institution of it all, still had his back.