Three police motorcyclists led the convoy, coming at a crawl, heads appearing first, then the fluorescent yellow of the shoulders and last the blue lights on their machines. The bell had stopped and the engines made a mere murmur, but the sobbing of one woman was clear. The motorcycles went on past Doug Bentley and the others, then a marked police car, but the hearse halted to the far side of the town hall and the funeral director climbed out of the front passenger seat. The local man who did the drill calls for Doug and the standard-bearer party gave the command and the dozen were raised, the tips dropped into the leather case that took their weight. He felt the sun full on him and a bead of sweat trickled down his cheek.

The funeral director wore a top hat and a morning suit; he had a fine walking staff with a silver-topped handle. As he moved forward a woman opposite Doug Bentley seemed to contract in a convulsion of tears and a man beside her, who had pink knees below the hem of his shorts, rubbed her neck gently. As the funeral director reached them, top hat now carried, the command came – softly spoken – and the standards dipped. All those years before, as a lance corporal in the Pay Corps, he had loathed drill sergeants, had been clumsy and useless at the co-ordination required, but he could do this now. The hearse eased to a halt and Doug Bentley dropped his head, as if in prayer, but he could see, beyond the glass, the closely pinned Union flag over the new clean wood of the coffin. He often wondered what they looked like, inside the shrouds and below the lids: at peace and unmarked, or mangled beyond recognition… It was those bloody bombs that did for them: what the TV said were IEDs – improvised explosive devices.