Hugo Buck had friends. Many friends. But it was the four men in the front row who flanked his coffin at the end of the service. And now, for the first time, I saw the other three faces clearly.

Salman Khan – a fit, prosperous businessman, in control now but clearly carrying a sadness that pressed on him like a physical weight.

Guy Philips – the top button of his shirt undone, sleepy-eyed, perhaps slightly bored, his face criss-crossed with the broken veins of the hardened drinker. He looked like a sports master from central casting – there was exactly that kind of hearty cruelty about him.

And Ben King – calm, self-contained, an impressive man, his smooth, unmarked face making his brother’s image look like a defaced mirror.

At Ben King’s word, the four men – the brothers at the front, Philips and Khan behind – crouched, linked arms, and stood up as one with the coffin on their shoulders. They began to walk slowly down the aisle, Buck’s parents and his widow behind them.

Music was playing. People were crying. One of them was Salman Khan. With the weight of his dead friend on his left shoulder, grief seemed suddenly to overwhelm him. This time his friends let him weep. All over the chapel, men and women were doing the same. For their friend and for themselves. But Hugo Buck’s widow looked straight ahead, passing by without looking left or right, her green eyes dry and unflinching behind that long black veil.

A youngish blonde woman who looked as though she knew her way around a horse was giving out single red roses at the door to the chapel. Mallory and I held back, letting the crowd go, and by the time we left the chapel the woman and the roses were gone, and the congregation were making their way to the grave.

By special request from the family, Hugo Buck was being buried in the West Cemetery, and it looked like a graveyard in a dream. As we followed the mourners up a steep winding path, we walked between row upon row of massive vaults, giant granite crosses and a host of stone angels whose faces were worn away by the years. A colossal stone dog slept for ever by the resting place of his master. An angel carried a sleeping child to heaven. All of it seemed consumed by nature. Ancient trees had grown between the graves and blotted out the dying sun. Ivy clung to tombs, as if claiming ownership. Everywhere wild flowers bloomed among the dead.

I shuddered as the committal prayer drifted through the trees. You could feel winter coming.

‘Behold, I show you a mystery,’ said the vicar.

‘Corinthians,’ Mallory said, with some approval. ‘The resurrection of the dead. Let’s see if we can get a little closer.’

‘We shall not all sleep – but we shall all be changed. In a moment – in the twinkling of an eye – at the last trumpet.’