Usually I didn’t have much to do with my widowed colleague X. His fearsome office wife guarded him jealously with an arrogant form of possessiveness that bordered on the pathological. In short, if you came too close, she’d make it clear that there was only one person in the world suitably qualified to keep X company, and that person was her.

For some unknown reason the office wife was away for the day. Her post unguarded, I made my move and plonked myself next to X on the dark green sofa. Between embraces we chatted with an admin colleague seated opposite us on another sofa, opening her Christmas cards.

Suddenly we were interrupted by cries from the street. A dead body lay in the middle of the road at the junction of Morningside Road and Merchiston Place. On learning the victim’s name most assumed that he was some random Italian tourist. Only I seemed to appreciate that we had a dead celebrity on our hands. The “Italian tourist” was none other than the Scottish painter and publisher Jack Vettriano.