‘Fuck, I can’t wait for this to be over,’ she said, fishing for her sunglasses. ‘You may as well take care of the oldies on the farm now; you’re the only one getting anything out it!’

She dropped her cigarette butt, suffocated it underfoot and strode towards the front of the church. James followed and thought about stopping her by putting a hand on her shoulder, but the sight of the empty hearse stopped him.

The short funeral attendant made a solemn announcement that the deceased Mr Brandt’s parents were running late, but if they’d like to wait in the church they were more than welcome to join the rest of the family.

Yvonne went inside. James followed only as far as the first row of pews before he caught sight of the coffin by the altar, waiting in a haze of sunlight coming through the high windows.

Fuck, Tony. What the fuck?

The organist was pumping away, smiling as though she was glad of even a small audience. Pete and the girls were already sitting down the front on the left-hand side, Yvonne heading for them.

James sensed the temptation to split in two when he felt a rumbling in his pocket. He questioned a moment what it was, before a shrill ring tone threatened to outdo the organ. Dragging his phone from his jacket, he rushed back into the daylight, apologised to the funeral attendant and ducked around the corner of the building before he saw the name on the screen.

Alan.

‘You there, Jamie?’ his brother said.

‘Hi, we’re just at the church now. Things haven’t kicked off yet.’

‘Yeah... just couldn’t get there, you know what it’s like, getting time off? Flight times are all over the place anyway,’ Alan said. ‘You staying with Dad?’

‘Yeah,’ James lied. ‘How are the kids?’

‘Oh, we’re all good, yeah, thanks. I got your message. Bit out of the blue, all that.’

‘Yeah, but you know me, if I can get a lead out of family, I’ll do it,’ James said.

The key to getting his brother to talk was to keep things jocular.

‘Bloody journos, you never change,’ Alan said. Perfect.

‘I was just talking with a couple of locals… you remember the Beaumonts?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, they were reminiscing about that time we were up here in the holidays and you lot rolled a car. Someone mentioned something about Johnny Jones.’

‘Johnny bloody Jones,’ Alan said, as though he were trying to remember details about a good mate. ‘There’s a name I haven’t heard for a long time.’

‘Well, see, this is the thing, they reckon he crashed the car out on the Wishaw Road the night of Tony’s buck’s party in town, but I seem to recall it was near the Kippen Bridge,’ James said, and forced himself to stop there.