The main difference was that they had to remove their shoes and put on head coverings before they entered the mosque. Judith had brought a rather splendid 1940s Hermès silk headscarf that had belonged to her great aunt. Becks had a pretty dupatta in red and gold, and in her handbag were two spares in case anyone hadn’t come prepared, which turned out to be the case with Suzie.

Once inside, they were directed to a large prayer room that had a dark red carpet with thick golden lines woven into it that ran the full length of the room. There was also a midnight blue curtain strung down the middle, dividing the space in two. Apart from a few plastic chairs by the walls, there was no other furniture.

At the front, an elderly man in a salwar kameez was reading tonelessly from the Quran into a microphone as half a dozen men mingled. To the man’s side, Iqbal’s coffin lay under a clean white cloth on a trestle table.

One of the men saw the women enter and headed over, anger furrowing his brow.

‘You can’t come this side,’ he hissed at them, indicating the curtain. ‘Women are on that side.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Becks said, defusing the situation with the well-practised smile of a vicar’s wife. ‘We’re going straight there. Thank you.’

Becks led her friends to the other side of the curtain and saw a solitary woman waiting at the front. The woman noticed them and nodded a smile of welcome. The three friends smiled back.

‘We’d better sit here,’ Becks said, indicating some plastic chairs lined up against the wall.

As they sat down, the imam appeared at the front of the room and started the service. While the various prayers and chants were in Arabic, a language they didn’t understand, the shape of the ceremony felt reassuringly familiar. It was also pleasantly brisk in comparison to a Church of England funeral, Becks found herself thinking, seeing as it came in at only twenty minutes long.

At the end, they saw the men from the other side of the curtain step forward, gather around the coffin, lift it up onto their shoulders and start to carry it out of the room. As they did so, Imam Latif crossed to their side of the curtain and approached.

‘I take it one of you is Suzie Harris,’ he said.

‘That’s right,’ Suzie said, offering her hand. ‘That’s me.’

‘I am so very sorry for your loss.’

‘Thank you,’ Suzie said, touched by the imam’s words.

‘And it’s good to see you, Mrs Starling.’

‘Salaam, Imam.’

‘How are your flock?’

‘My husband’s flock. They’re well. And yours?’