"Hi NZCol, about your 11:30am meeting, George can't make it"
"oh sorry to hear that, can we reschedule"
"well no not really. He died"
Not often I have nothing to say but I was somewhat taken aback by his PAs reasonably casual assessment of the situation. Gutting, early 50s two kids under ten, lovely bloke. A client but a friend as well.
It's a strange one when a business contact dies - you've kind of not got a real personal relationship so it's hard to know exactly how to respond or feel about it. Years ago when I did some work in the construction industry, this happened a few times with suppliers. Some seemed to shut up shop for a while, others carried on as though nothing at all had happened as in your post - eg completely professional and detached.
Reminds me of the (Secret Policeman's Ball?) sketch with Rowan Atkinson playing the headmaster of a child that died.
But horrible news - as a recent-ish new father this sort of news fills me full of foreboding - we are all going but I would hate to leave my young children without a dad. A good friend has a boy of 9 and a wife with a brain tumour - just had a third lot of surgery and she is now undergoing chemo and radiotherapy 
I had a client call me up recently: "Hey AB, can I come in and see you, something I need to talk to you about?" I try to discourage meetings so I tried to eke it out of home on the 'phone, assuming it was a tax bill or a customer service matter, but he was having none of it. So along he popped. "Well, Brian, what can I do for you?". "I've been diagnosed with Moto-Neurones Disease and I have between 2 weeks and 6 months to live - I'd like yuo to transfer my shares in the company to my wife, please." Quite matter-of-fact.
Ask if you can have his bike?
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