The village of Falls had neither church nor cemetery, but there was a small, little-used church – more the size of a chapel, really – just off the road between Falls and Causland. The family had picked the spot and arranged everything, but secretly those friends of Flip’s who’d been able to attend thought the tranquillity and isolation out of keeping with Flip’s character. They couldn’t help feeling she’d have wanted something livelier, somewhere in the city itself, where people walked their dogs or went for a Sunday stroll, and where, in darkness, lively biker parties and furtive couplings might take place.

The graveyard here was too neat and compact, the graves too old and looked after. Flip would have wanted wild, straggling creepers and mosses, briar bushes and long wet grass. But then, when they considered, they realised she wouldn’t care one way or the other, because she was dead and that was the end of it. At that moment, perhaps for the first time, they were able to separate loss from numb shock, and to feel the pangs of a life left incomplete.

There were too many people for the church. The doors were left open so that the short service could be heard outside. The day was cool, the ground heavy with dew. Birds played in the trees, agitated at this unique invasion. Cars lined the main road, the hearse having discreetly pulled away, heading back to Edinburgh. Liveried drivers stood beside several of the vehicles, cigarettes in hands. Rollers, Mercs, Jags …

Nominally, the family had worshipped in a city church, and the minister had been persuaded to lead the service, though he was used to seeing the Balfours only at Christmas, and then not for the past two or three years. He was a thorough man, who had checked his script with the mother and father, asking solicitous questions whose answers would help him bulk out Flip’s biography, but he was also bemused by the attentions of the media. Being used to encountering cameras only at weddings and christenings, when one was pointed in his direction for the first time, he gave a beaming smile, only afterwards realising the inappropriateness of his action. These were not carnationed relatives but journalists, keeping their distance from the solemnities and their lenses trained only so far. Though the graveyard itself could be viewed clearly from the roadway, there’d be no photos of the coffin being lowered, or the parents by the graveside. Permission had been granted for one photograph only: of the coffin being carried from the church.

Of course, once the mourners were off church property, they would be reckoned fair game again.

‘Parasites,’ one of the guests, a Balfour’s client of long standing, had hissed. All the same, he knew he’d be buying more than one paper next morning, just to see if he figured in any of the spreads.