On Thursday, the extraordinary life of Simon Mann - SAS officer, mercenary, adventurer, brewing heir and bon viveur - will be celebrated in a central London chapel.
Among the congregation will be both the wife he was divorcing and the woman he planned to marry, Negar Yazdani.
Negar, 50 a lawyer, will be wearing the heart necklace Mann gave her shortly after their relationship began two years ago.
'It will be the first of very many,' he promised her. The fact that he died in her arms at her home, and that today she is the sole executor of his complex will is a measure of their trust and commitment.
She will attend alongside Mann's elegant third wife Amanda, the mother of four of his seven children, with whom he was reunited after his release from Equatorial Guinea's notorious Black Beach prison. (He was jailed for his role in the 2004 Wonga Coup, an attempt to topple the nation's President.)
