Jasmine gave her a sad smile and a hug by way of acknowledgement, her thoughts going back a few days to the service she had attended for Anne’s parents, Stephen and Eilidh. People had thanked her then, too: total strangers, these middle-aged men and women with decades of hurt in their eyes turning to sincerest gratitude for having been released from this prison of not knowing.

For the first time in over a year, she had stopped feeling like a lost little girl. All these older people, a generation apart, were acting like she was the one who had taken care of them, like they saw this woman standing there whom it took Jasmine a while to recognise as herself.

‘Look,’ said Angela, ‘there’s another reason I need to speak to you. We had the reading of the will. Jim left the business to us, to his children, collectively. It wasn’t that specific a stipulation, it just got covered among a more general directive. The thing is, it’s not worth anything except as a going concern. The office is rented on a lease and there’s not a lot of assets worth liquidating: an ageing computer, an old van, a bunch of surveillance equipment and some office furniture. I mean, he was the business: a one-man show. Until he brought you in.’

Angela cast a tearful eye to her side, where her father’s coffin lay waiting for the mounds of earth either side to be shovelled over him for ever.

‘We’ve discussed it and we’re all agreed that it should be yours if you want it. We’ve no doubt it’s what Dad would have wanted, especially if he’d known what you just did.’

Angela filled up again, her face creasing once more with grief.

‘Just … think about it and let us know,’ she said, her voice cracking at the end.

Jasmine nodded solemnly and Angela walked away to where her husband Mark was waiting, holding open the rear door of a black funeral car.

The red Civic was parked somewhere in the caravan of mourners’ vehicles along the narrow one-way road that snaked through the cemetery, striking an almost inappropriate note of vivid colour among the black cars and black clothes. Everyone was heading to a nearby hotel for more hugs, tears and sausage rolls. Jasmine would catch them up in a little while.