Chapter 14: Romeo and Mary Sue

Miss Smallbone sat on MY chair, in MY kitchen, paid for by MY money, thanks to a deposit given me by MY parents, looking as if she was chewing a wasp. We stared at each other. I cracked first. ‘Who are you?’ I asked. ‘David Tennant told me to trust you, but why should I? He killed my husband.’

‘We don’t have time for you to get hysterical,’ said Miss Smallbone, primly. ‘David killed Gavin because Gavin was a demon, and you should be grateful.’

‘Are you, “The Teacher”?’

That stopped her in her tracks. ‘Did Sir Connaught take you to Centrepoint?’ she asked tersely. I nodded. ‘There’s no fool like an old fool,’ she sighed. ‘So, you’ve seen headquarters. It’s more than I ever have.’

‘We only just escaped.’ Miss Smallbone looked shocked. ‘There was a fight. Didn’t you know? You were betrayed.’ I turned on the television, and flicked to News 24. There were pictures of Centrepoint, smoke gushing from high windows, and a reporter saying that ‘initial reports of a terrorist atrocity,’ now seemed less likely than a ‘Russian mafia gunbattle.’

‘Was anyone hurt?’ whispered Miss Smallbone.

‘I didn’t see.’ I turned to her. ‘Please tell me what all this is about. I feel like I’m going mad.’

‘I know,’ said Miss Smallbone. ‘I’m sorry.’ She pointed weakly at the screen. ‘David was certain we’d been infiltrated somehow, and this proves it. We have no time to waste.’

‘David Tennant said I was the Chosen One,’ I said. ‘What does that mean? It’s insane. You must have made a mistake.’

‘I’m sorry to be the person to tell you this, Miss Park, but you are not who you think you are. You never have been. If you went to Centrepoint, perhaps someone told you about the great battle, seventy million years ago, and how we ended up on earth?’

‘Trevor McDonald told me.’

‘Well, the one thing that is eternal about us, apart from the fact that we live forever, is that those of us who have come to be called Angels hate the Demons, and vice versa. There is an ancient prophecy, like always in these cases. It says that one day a Demon will love an Angel, and a child will be born. This child will be the Chosen One, for good or ill. The Child will be the only one who can slay the Master, who is the main Demon.’

‘Why don’t the Demons just kill me?’

‘Because the Chosen One, if she joins the Master, can open the Gates of Hell. We don’t know what that means, precisely.’

‘It sounds bad,’ I said.

‘It certainly does.’

I was calm now, much calmer than I had been at any point since David Tennant had cut off my husband's head. ‘You’ve made a massive mistake. My parents aren’t Demons and Angels. They’re a Korean historian and an English teacher. I’m really sorry to have wasted your time, but I totally look like both of them.’

‘Call them up.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘I don’t have time.’

My mother, as she had earlier when I spoke to her briefly about what had happened with Gavin, tried desperately to sound calm, for my sake, and I loved her even more than usual, which was basically impossible. I said I was sorry I was being abrupt, and that I was going to ask her an extraordinary question, and that I didn’t want her to get angry with me for asking, but it was suddenly unbelievably important that I did, even though it was ridiculous. By the time I got this far, I could hear her starting to cry. ‘I knew this day would come,’ she said.

‘You know what I’m going to ask?’

‘I can’t do this over the phone. I’ll get in the car now.’

‘No!’ I yelped. ‘No, mum. I’m sorry, I can’t explain, but nothing you can ever say will stop me loving you. But I need to know right now.’ There was a long silence. ‘I promise I’m okay, but I have to know.’

I heard her take a huge breath. ‘Your father and I tried for a child for several years. It didn’t work, and we decided we wouldn’t spend our lives trying. We wouldn’t let it define us, or be bitter. And then, the very next day, we found you on our doorstep.’

It felt like a horse had kicked my stomach. ‘But,’ I said. ‘But I look like you. I look like you both.’

‘When you arrived, you were a little white girl with red hair. Over the first two months, your skin darkened, your eyes changed, and you came to look like us. You were like a miracle. You are a miracle.’

It took my mother and I half an hour to say goodbye, and we only managed it because we were in protective shock. I wanted to call her straight back, but Miss Smallbone said, ‘No. I’m sorry. If Centrepoint is compromised, we have to get you somewhere safer than this. And you have to remember, you cannot trust anybody.’

‘That isn’t true,’ I said. ‘I have old friends. I know them. I looked out of the window at Sergeant Rollo Price, who I had such a crush on eight years earlier. ‘I can trust Rollo.’ Miss Smallbone shook her head. ‘Of course I can.’

‘Wave at him,’ she instructed. I attracted his attention, and did so.’ Miss Smallbone cocked her head for a moment, reached into her pocket and passed me a small earphone. ‘Directional microphone,’ she said, and touched her brooch. ‘Attached to this.’

She pointed it at Rollo just as Rollo’s partner said to him, ‘I can’t believe you’re being so friendly to her. She obviously knows something about that poor bastard who was killed.’

‘Softly, softly, catchee monkey,’ said Rollo out of the side of his mouth. ‘She used to be in love with me.’

‘You sure it wasn’t mutual?’

‘Oh please,’ said Rollo, as he carried on smiling up at me. ‘Mary Sue’s a bright girl who could have done some good with her life, but decided to be a parasite. It’s exactly what the world doesn’t need.’

‘So why are you playing nice?’

‘If I keep softening her up, she’ll crack by this time tomorrow,’ Rollo said smugly.

Chapter 13: I Woke Up and It was All a Dream

After the explosion, the gunfire started, just the other side of the wall. Immediately, everyone stood between me and the battle sounds, and someone pressed a button on the biggest sofa. It’s seat flipped sideways and up to reveal a chest of futuristic-looking guns, which were quickly and efficiently passed out. ‘Oh God,’ said Sir Trevor McDonald. ‘We’re probably all going to die.’

‘Don’t listen to him,’ said David Mitchell the novelist. ‘He’s always really negative.’ To the others he said, ‘They’ll be past the autoguards very soon. Be ready.’ Freddie Flintoff and Davina Mccall took up position at the front. David Mitchell the novelist turned and said, ‘Get her home safely, Sir Conn. We must fight here.’

‘I’m just checking,’ I said. ‘But I’m not immortal, like you are? Is that right? Or am I?’

‘We don’t know,’ said David Mitchell the novelist simply. ‘And we cannot take that risk. Don’t worry about us. This is just a skirmish. They’ll break off when they see you aren’t here. Run.’

Sir Connaught Sampson-Samson, bon viveur and self-proclaimed lion of the law, was not famous for his quick feet, but he fair twinkled through the furniture. The lift plunged us down through Centrepoint, past the secret entrance in the cleaner’s cupboard in the underpass by Tottenham Court Road, and opened into a grubby office. Through the filthy window, I could see that we were off a corridor in Tottenham Court Road station proper, near the Central Line. ‘Oyster card?’ asked Sir Conn. ‘I nodded. ‘Sign in with it here,’ he said, indicating a reader by the office door, ‘since we have circumvented the ordinary entrance.’

‘Who uses this office?’

‘Just us. The sign on the door says Operational Systems. We make sure it’s occupied sometimes, and no one pays it any attention. Chop-chop.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Your house. It’ll be safe for the moment. The Master wants you alive.’

‘Why did you get me out of that fight then?’

‘Stray bullets.’

When we reached West Hampstead, I headed straight over the road to Oddbins. I had some wine at home, but I was pretty sure I’d run out of Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food, and I would need some. It had been a long day. I asked Sir Conn if he wanted anything. ‘I’d better pootle off, old thing. There will be some clearing up.’

‘Were you really betrayed?’

He nodded ruefully. ‘Centrepoint’s been our main base since it was built. And now we must find somewhere else. Davina’s going to be livid. She’s just redone the kitchen and emergency sleeping area. Still. We have a back-up HQ prepared. You’ll see it soon, I’m sure.’ As we turned into Dynham Road, I saw the police car. I looked at Sir Conn. ‘You realised they’d be here, surely?’ he said. It was obvious, now I thought of it. Standing next to the car, beautiful in the early evening, was Sergeant Rollo Price.

‘Hello, Ems,’ he said, as if we saw each other every day, and as if nothing had happened. ‘Sir Connaught.’

‘Sergeant Price,’ said Sir Conn. I trust you will be able to look after her?’

‘Probably not as well as you, sir. Very nifty, how you gave us the slip, back at Tottenham Court Road.’

‘I don’t understand, officer?’

‘When you were driving, which you’re not now. Do you remember?’

‘I can’t honestly say that I do. But if you say it happened, then I’m sure it did. I can’t stand around here all day. Until tomorrow, Miss Park.’

‘It was interesting,’ said Rollo, raising his voice slightly, ‘that twenty minutes after you gave us the slip near Centrepoint, there was an explosion in that building, and sounds of gunfire. I’ve been listening to reports on the police radio.’

‘What an exciting life it is in London’s police force,’ said Sir Conn.’ I have always admired you for it, to be sure.’

‘Yes, and forty minutes later, which is probably how long it would take someone to get here from Tottenham Court Road, here you are.’

‘I honestly do not know what you are saying. I look forward to our next encounter.’ And with a tiny incline of his head, more respectful than mocking I thought, my illustrious Head of Chambers spun and was gone.

‘Tell me what’s going on,’ said Rollo. ‘I can help you.’

I wanted to, I really did, but I shook my head and went inside, clutching my Oddbins bag. As I climbed the stairs, I could feel myself starting to tremble. I had go this far on adrenalin, but my reserves were exhausted. I needed a shower, I needed a glass of red wine, and I would put some dressing on a bag of salad leaves before I ate my ice cream, because then I would be having a balanced diet.

In the shower, after being shocked for the manyth time that day by my stupid new short hair, I leant against the wall and washed the day away. David Tennant had killed my husband, who was a demon, and I had sat in a meeting of elves-slash-angels in a secret hideaway in central London, and it was all because, for some reason, I was the Chosen One. I turned up the heat until I was gasping, and forced myself to stand until I could bear it easily. At which point, I realised at last that the only logical explanation for any of this was that I had gone crazy, or that this was still a dream, like that series of Dallas when Bobby Ewing was dead. In fact, by the time I emerged and was drying myself, the logical puzzler at the forefront of my mind was this: IF I had gone crazy, THEN Sir Conn had brought me home and this meant bad things for me jobwise, BUT I probably did remember buying some ice cream, which would be waiting for me in the freezer, which was excellent; IF it was all a dream, THEN so was the ice cream, BUT I’d still be welcome at chambers. It was tricky. My hair was definitely short, for instance, so some of today had happened. There really might be Ben and Jerry’s. Best to check, certainly. I went to the kitchen.

‘Mary Sue Park,’ said a crisp voice, and I yelped with shock. ‘It was Miss Smallbone, who David Tennant said would explain everything. She was sitting at the table, frowning at me. ‘Why did you take so long to get here? Didn’t David tell you not to speak to anyone?’

Chapter 12: I didn’t do what David Tennant told me to do, and someone is going to die because of it

‘Hey, lass,’ said Freddie Flintoff in his soft, Lancashire accent, his cornflower blue eyes bearing gently down on me. ‘You look knackered. You need a seat. You’ve had a hell of a day.’ He took my shoulder gently in his huge right hand and guided me out of the lobby and into an astonishingly bright room. David Tennant had told me I had to go home and not speak to anyone at all, but I had been dragged here by my boss, so it wasn’t my fault.

I sat numbly in a black leather armchair while a selection of mostly famous faces arranged themselves around me. They were trying not to stare, but I felt like the first worm surrounded by a group of very polite early birds deciding who should go first. ‘Stop staring at her, you pelicans!’ said Kylie Minogue, shaking her head, and then looking at me. ‘They’ve got no manners. Do you want some tea? I put the kettle on five minutes ago?’ I nodded, and she skipped out of the room, saying, as she went, ‘Don’t frighten her, you great galahs.’

‘Er, yes, of course,’ said Sir Trevor McDonald gruffly. ‘Sorry about that. I appreciate it must be intimidating. When we heard about what happened, we felt it would be best to know that there are people on your side in all this. David Tennant did explain?’

‘He started to,’ I said. ‘But I am still very confused.’

‘Naturally,’ said a young, smooth man, who was one of the ones I didn’t recognise. ‘What did he tell you?’

‘I hardly know. That history was a battle between good and evil, between angels and demons, and that I was the Chosen One, and I am on the side of the angels. It made no sense.’
They looked at each other. ‘Was Tennant with anyone?’ asked the smooth man. The room I was in must have been forty metres along each side. It was a corner, windows on two sides, high up in Centrepoint. It didn’t seem like the kind of place anyone lived, but it didn’t seem like an office either. It was more like a private club. I still hadn’t answered the smooth man’s question. David Tennant had been very emphatic that I must not tell anyone about Miss Smallbone, who had been with him, and who he said would find me and tell me what to do next. But that had been before my lawyer and boss, Sir Connaught Sampson-Samson, had lost the police and brought me here. I didn’t know what to do. In the end, I shook my head.

Sir Connaught said, ‘Good girl. Even if The Teacher was with him, that’s something we don’t need to know.’

‘But…’ started the smooth man.

‘The Teacher might be real, might be a myth, might be any of us. But whoever he is…’

‘Or she,’ said Davina Mccall.

‘Of course, old sausage. Whoever he or she is, his or her security is that no one knows.’
The others nodded. I didn’t know what to say. ‘Is this a penthouse?’ I ventured.

‘No,’ said the smooth man. ‘That would be too obvious. This is a couple of floors down. No one knows it’s here, apart from us.’

‘I’m glad it’s not all famous people here,’ I said to the smooth man. There was some stifled giggling and I knew I’d said something wrong.

‘He’s David Mitchell, the novelist,’ said Kylie Minogue, bringing me a mug of tea. ‘He hates it that no one recognises him, and especially now that there’s this other David Mitchell, the comedian, who everyone does recognise.’

‘I assumed that David Mitchell the comedian wrote the novels,’ I said. ‘He seems so clever on the telly.’

Kylie broke into a peal of laughter as David Mitchell the novelist sulked. ‘Loads of people think that. It’s really funny.’

‘Sorry, lads and lasses,’ said Freddie Flintoff. ‘Much as I’m enjoying t’banter, I’ve got a Twenty20 international cricket match to play at t’Oval. Can we get a move on?’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Sir Trevor McDonald. ‘Seventy million years ago, in a distant galaxy, there was a war so terrible you cannot imagine. It lasted five million years, and it destroyed the planet of Traxltl, a place so beautiful you cannot imagine it. The energies unleashed were also so terrible you cannot imagine them, and the few survivors were flung by a wave of power across space and landed up on earth of all places, having suffered in ways that are so terrible you cannot imagine what they were.’

‘You really are a wizard with words, Trevor,’ said David Mitchell the novelist, still sulking.

‘Harrumph’ grunted McDonald. ‘Well, We landed on earth in this huge explosion of energy, which darkened the sky for hundreds of years and destroyed the dinosaurs, and we have been here ever since. We are immortal,’ he added, ‘like the elves in Lord of the Rings.’

‘No, Trevor!’ said David Mitchell with a pained expression. ‘If you’re going to use contemporary references, you have to get them right!’

‘The elves do live forever, don’t they?’ muttered the newsreader, mutinously.

‘Yes, but they don’t get reborn in new bodies when they die?’

‘What? They just stay looking the same?’ He asked. I nodded. ‘Harrumph. Anyway…’

‘So you’re not really angels?’

‘It’s tricky trying to explain what we are. Some of us have come to love the earth, and we seek to protect it. Others, our enemies, who are the baddies, basically, by any rational standard, are bent on dominating everything.’

‘Do you have special powers?’

‘That’s the thing. We are not stronger or cleverer than humans. But, like I say, if we are killed, we are instantly reborn in another body. We can only be truly killed by having our heads cut off with the sword of Zsarkon, which David Tennant has.’

‘So, Gavin…’ I began.

‘Yes. Your husband won’t trouble you again. And the other way we can be killed is by being thrown into a black hole. But even though we have no superpowers, so-called, we have always been present in the great human struggles, fighting the Demons. We were Churchill and Wellington against Hitler and Napoleon, and so on. We have been involved in all the big conspiracies, like JFK, et cetera. Do you see?’

‘It’s all so surprising,’ I said.

‘Don’t worry, pet,’ said Freddie Flintoff. ‘We’re here to protect you. No one know about us, or this place. Only us. You’re completely safe.’ He sounded as if he was trying to persuade himself.

CRASH! Everything juddered and we all fell to the floor apart from Freddie Flintoff, who looked angrily around him. Everyone flashed significant, horrified looks at everyone else.

‘So,’ said Trevor McDonald grimly. ‘David Tennant was right. The prophecy is true. We have a traitor in our midst!’

‘Or someone followed you,’ said David Mitchell the novelist to me and Sir Connaught Sampson-Samson. ‘And now we have to fight to save her life.’ I swallowed guiltily.

Chapter 11: Sir Trevor McDonald's Comforting Voice

It was lovely and sunny on the roof of the police station, but I had to get out of here. The police were right that I knew more than I was saying about David Tennant and why he had killed my husband, even if the things I knew were a kind of crazy madness that I didn’t officially believe. I caught sight of myself in one of the glass panels walling the covered section of the roof, and I was shocked for the thousandth time that day by my stupid new haircut. And now I’d be in the newspapers. When I got my phone back, half the messages would be from my mother saying that I looked like a convict. There was no way that everything that was happening wasn’t a nightmare, and the reason I knew this for certain is that I found the hair aspect amusing rather than tragic. I looked at Sir Connaught in mute appeal.

‘Would you please stand away from us, Sergeant Price,’ he told Rollo. ‘I must speak with my client.’ He walked me to a shaded bench, sat me down and perched alongside. ‘I want to get you out of this building as quickly as possible, old thing, get you somewhere where we can work out what to do. However, Tennant insists on speaking to you. Do it, find out what he needs to tell you, tell the police you have nothing more to say, and then we will leave. Once we’re out of here we can have a proper conference.’ I nodded.

‘I said that David is my client?’ I said. ‘Can I really use that to keep what he said secret?’

His eyes glittered, and an edge of smile appeared. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘If you aren’t involved in this crime, and so long as he doesn’t ask you to plead against what you know to be true, then yes. Given what he did to your husband, it’s terrifically unprofessional, from an ethics viewpoint, and as your Head of Chambers, I disapprove wildly. However, these are extraordinary circumstances, and from a legal perspective, you’re fine.’

When the police reluctantly let me in alone to see David Tennant, David smiled and said, ‘Thank God you’re here. Are you ok? Is Sir Conn sorting you out’

My reaction was to weaken at the knees. Appropriate, I told myself. Stay appropriate. ‘How do you know about Sir Conn?’ I asked.

‘I know a lot of things. You didn’t tell them what I said?’ he asked. I shook my head. ‘Good. It would have made you sound like a nutter, like I must sound to you.’ I glanced at him sharply. ‘I know how this appears. Good and evil, angels and demons. You need to know what you’re involved in before you can help me, and I can’t tell you here. I only have one crucial thing to say to you, the reason I absolutely had to see you now, and it’s this: you need to speak to Miss Smallbone before you do anything else.’ Miss Smallbone was the lawyer David brought with him to my office this afternoon. He’d already told me not to mention her name, though I couldn’t see why he was so worried. Seeing me puzzle over Miss Smallbone’s place in the scheme of things, a shadow crossed David face. ‘You didn’t mention her, did you? Not to anyone, even Sir Conn? I can’t tell you how important this is.’ I shook my head. ‘Of course! I knew you wouldn’t. She’ll be at your flat. The very next thing you must do is speak to her, and let her explain what’s happening, and tell you what to do. I’ll be fine here until tomorrow. Go straight home. Don’t let anyone divert you. I cannot tell you how crucial it is you speak to her first.’

Detective Inspector Pushkas was very unhappy when I insisted on going home, and as Rollo Price took me to the back door, he advised me urgently, as a friend, that I should really help the police in any way I possibly could. Sir Conn pulled up in his bright red Aston Martin. ‘Had to put the roof up, just in case anyone was here. Pity. Lovely day. Hop in.’ I did, and before I could say goodbye to Rollo, we roared away, wheels squealing. ‘Love doing that,’ said Sir Conn. ‘Parp parp.’ He sped through the traffic, eyes fixed on the rear-view mirror. ‘Police following,’ he said. ‘Don’t blame them. Nil desperandum.’ At Tottenham Court Road station, he pulled over to the side of the road and squeezed out.

‘No, Sir Conn. I have to go home.’

‘Because Tennant told you to? Don’t worry. He wouldn’t mind this.’

‘But, Sir Conn…’

‘No time, old thing. Hurry, hurry.’ Sir Connaught Sampson-Samson is a hard man to gainsay. I got out of the car. ‘Don’t worry about the car, someone will come for it.’ He pulled me towards the tube entrance, and I followed dumbly. He wove through the crowds, and along to one of the horrible underpasses. He was holding a clipboard for some reason. A man, smelling hideously of urine, was in the doorway of what looked like a cupboard. Sir Conn reached over him, unlocked it and pulled me in after him, turned and shut the door. ‘Clipboard,’ he said, waving it. ‘It’s like we’re invisible. People think we’re reading the meter. If they thought at all. Don’t like using this door, but needs must.’

‘What is this place?’

‘Cupboard,’ he said, turning on a light. It was full of mops. ‘This, however…’ He pressed his thumb against a light switch at the back of the cupboard, and the wall opened. ‘Hop in.’ It was a lift, with four buttons, Sir Conn pressed the top one. The lift whooshed up, up and more up. Sir Conn raised his eyebrow.

‘Centrepoint?’ I asked. He nodded, pleased.

The lift opened on a ring of worried faces. I didn’t recognise half of them, but, among the other half were Davina Mccall, Freddie Flintoff, Jeremy Clarkson and Kylie Minogue. They gave a collective sigh of relief as Sir Trevor McDonald’s patrician voice intoned, ‘Thank goodness, Mary Sue. We were very worried about you.’

Chapter 10: Rabbit Stew

FLASH ‘What’s Tennant like in bed?’ FLASH ‘Did you put him up to it? FLASH ‘Do you agree that you are a Human Black Widow of Death?’ FLASH FLASH FLASH.

I was like a bunny in the lights. I was dimly aware that Sir Connaught Sampson-Samson was trying to tug me inside, but I stood stock planted. Then the door burst open behind me, and Rollo Price practically lifted me in the air as he swept me back into the station. The whole thing can only have lasted twenty seconds, but my legs were jelly.

As soon as we were safely inside, Rollo spun me towards him, and said, ‘Are you okay, Ems? I’m really sorry about that.’ His voice seemed to come from deep in his grey-blue eyes. I nodded dumbly. Still holding me, Rollo looked furiously at the thin sergeant. ‘What the hell are you playing at? You knew they were out there!’

The sergeant shrugged his meagre shoulders. ‘David Tennant killed her husband,’ he said. ‘She knows something about it, and she isn’t answering our questions. She’s not the victim.’

‘Don’t be absurd,’ hissed Sir Conn. ‘This girl is no more capable of murder than a peacock. You know that.’

The thin man looked at me, not particularly apologetic. ‘I am sorry, Miss Park. We doubt you instigated this, but you have to start telling the truth.

Sir Conn interposed himself between me and Rollo, put his arm around me and walked me back into the building. Rollo and the thin sergeant walked behind. While we walked, he whispered,

‘Right-ho, old thing. I’m getting you out of here. Let’s find a place to sit down.’ Every bench and chair in the station seemed to be occupied. We stopped in a corridor which opened into a room of desks full of people pretending they weren’t trying to listen.

‘I’ll look after her while you speak to the chief, Sir Connaught,’ said Rollo. ‘If that’s what you want? We’ll wait here.’ Sir Conn looked doubtful, but I nodded that it was okay, and he bustled off.

‘Sorry, Ems,’ said Rollo. ‘Some of the guys here aren’t the most conciliatory knives in the block.’

‘I get why they’re annoyed,’ I say. ‘I can see what it looks like.’

‘I know you,’ said Rollo. ‘Don’t worry about anything.’

‘I really want to sit down.’

‘Well, there’s… Wait. Come with me.’

‘But, Sir Conn thinks we’re waiting here.’

Rollo looked at the thin sergeant, who nodded wearily. ‘Atkins,’ said the sergeant to the small, Cornish-looking man on the nearest desk. When that fat guy comes back, tell us we’ve gone to the roof, okay?’ Atkins nodded.

Five minutes later, we were standing among pot plants in what was, all in all, a very pleasant roof garden. We hadn’t broken stride on the way here, but Rollo had somehow magicked into existence two mugs (not even plastic cups) of tea. It really felt like I was alone with Rollo. The thin man was twenty yards away, standing like a wraith, imperturbable. I imagined that was the secret of his detecting success – people forgot he was there.

I started as a raven landed ten feet from us on the back of a bench, and cocked its head, as if in warning. This was me being hypersensitive – animals don’t warn people – but David Tennant had told me not to trust anyone, and I was trying not to trust Rollo because David had been so certain, but here Rollo was, not just protecting me but also acting like an anchor to my past, to the time when everything was normal. But when had things stopped being normal? For a moment, I thought it was this morning, when my husband was killed. But then I thought it must actually be when he and Cathy Calloway, on my wedding day, did … that thing. But if they were demons, which in Cathy Calloway’s case seemed unarguable, then maybe it went back forever, as early as I met Cathy, which was before I first saw Rollo. Which meant that Rollo wasn’t an anchor to the time before at all.

But, whatever the logic, Rollo felt like an anchor, and that’s what counted. But David Tennant told me to trust no one until I’d spoken to Miss Smallbone, and I’d immediately let Rollo, who I hadn’t seen for years, lead me onto a high roof, where we were all but alone. I looked at him over the lip of my mug. ‘You can trust me, Ems,’ he said. ‘Whatever happens, I promise, you can trust me. I’m here to help you.’

‘I want to tell you what’s happening, but I can’t. I’m sorry, Rollo.’

He smiled. ‘Don’t worry about that. We’ll talk in good time.’ He indicated the thin man. ‘Apart from anything else, I wouldn’t put it past that one to have some kind of directional mike secreted about his person.’ The thin man waved back gently as, from behind him, Sir Conn burst onto the roof garden.

‘Mary Sue,’ he said, not quite angry. ‘What have you said to him?’

‘We’re not your enemies, Sir Connaught,’ said Rollo.

‘Please trust me, Mary Sue,’ said Sir Conn, ignoring him. ‘These people are not your friends. This is a horrible business, they want it over fast, and you are way for them to do it. I want you out of this building before you do yourself any more harm.’ Then he frowned, ‘Unfortunately, before you can do that, it is imperative that you speak briefly to David Tennant.’

WEEKEND TWO

Well, I'm still enjoying myself, and I'm still a crucial few days ahead of the game. I am gong to do this progress report in list form, which is not elegant, but there you are. Some of the points have been dealt with in comment conversations, but this is a round-up.

1. Monday: this might be a holiday for bankers and suchlike sybarites, but it isn't for freelancers. We never take days off. I am not taking today off. In fact, while I get on well with bankers, lawyers, accountants, etc., all they are doing is servicing the world. They say that people like me are dreamers, etc., but someone has to make stuff, whether that means digging stuff out of the ground, or turning stuff into chairs, or whatever. These primary producers are the green plants of the economic ecosystem, the people who make the things that the accountants and lawyers can then make money out of. Writers are primary producers in the purest form - we create stuff out of nothing. I am almost literally chorophyll. By which I mean, in response to a number of emails, 'Yes, there will be a new chapter on Monday.'

2. 'How are you finding the creative process?' a couple of people have asked me. Well, it's liberating not to be worried about the whole, and just to trot along writing the next thing that comes to my mind every morning. And, indeed, HAVING to write like this, because I can't afford to spend more than an hour on it every day.

3. Feedback: as I've said elsewhere, it's nice to be writing for an audience. I'm not worried by working alone, and trying slowly to get stuff just right, but this is nice for a change.

4. Editing: I think it might be bad form to edit a personal blog, because it goes against the immediacy/intimacy of the form. This isn't a personal blog, though, so whenever you point out typos or obvious mistakes, I will correct them. Thank you very much if you have already done this.

5. Consistency: is the hobgoblin of little minds, etc. However, I am striving not to make continuity errors, as per above. What I cannot guarantee is that storylines I set off on early on will necessarily all be followed through. I have an increasing idea where this story is going, but it is only an idea, and certain things are bound to go by the wayside. Hopefully, those will be the crappy bits you haven't liked.

6. I have got a grip on my obsession with site statistics, to a certain degree. And comments. I only check in a few times a day.

7. I love writing Sir Conn to a ludicrous degree. This is something to be wary of it, and I am beware of it. There's another character you will meet sometime in the next couple of weeks (I think) that will also cause this trouble. She is French, and I will say no more about her, except that every time I think of the things she is going to say, I find myself giggling.

8. I'm having a whale of a time; I dare say that's obvious; I hope you are too.

Chapter 9: Proof That I've Been Shagging David Tennant

Cathy Calloway was waving a brown manila envelope. She thrust it into Rollo’s hands. ‘It’s proof, Sergeant Price,’ she pouted at him. He didn't react. ‘I only didn’t recognise you because it’s been such a long time, and I remember a pretty boy rather than this beautiful man,’ she added, dragging her carmine nail softly down the back of his hand as he took it. Rollo glanced guiltily at me to see if I’d noticed this, and twisted his features into a look of distaste. The beard suited him. He looked good in uniform too.

‘Miss Calloway,’ he said. ‘You will have to wait until we have time to interview you about this.’

‘No way,’ Cathy said, withdrawing. ‘I have to go.’

‘What’s going on?’ asked Detective Inspector Pushkas, arriving with her Sergeant, a very thin man with tightly curling hair that needed to be cut, wearing steel-rimmed glasses and a bad black suit.

‘This woman says she has proof that Miss Park was involved in a prior relationship with Mr Tennant.’

‘Really? You’re Miss Calloway, yes? I spoke to you at the scene?’

‘Yes. And I have to go. I have done my civic duty, and now I must go back to my office.’

‘I’m afraid that’s not how it works,’ said Pushkas. ‘We’ll need to discuss this evidence with you. My sergeant will make sure you’re comfortable.’ The thin man led an angry Cathy down the corridor, and Inspector Pushkas turned to me. ‘Miss Park, Sir Connaught Sampson-Samson left me in no doubt that I should wait for him before conducting any interview with you. Sergeant Price will look after you. I’ll look at whatever’s in this envelope. Judging from the things Mis Calloway said at the scene, I’d be surprised if you have anything to… Well. It would be unprofessional of me to continue. Interview Room Two, Sergeant Price.’

About twenty minutes later, the door of the sickly pale blue room opened to admit Pushkas and her sergeant, along with Sir Conn. He sat beside me, saying, ‘We’ll be out of here in ten minutes.’

Pushkas repeated the questions I’d been asked in South Square, and I told the same story: David Tennant arrives, says he’ll need a lawyer, looks out of the window, goes downstairs, and kills my cheating husband Gavin. ‘Why?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know.’ I don’t tell her that David said I was the Chosen One. ‘I’d never met him before.’

‘Miss Calloway tells a different story.’

‘She’s lying. What was her proof?’

‘Proof?’ rumbled Sir Conn. ‘Really? I doubt that.’ Detective Inspector Pushkas and the thin sergeant barely suppressed their grins. Pushkas slid over the colour print-outs, on ordinary paper, of three photographs. The couple involved were considerably better built than David Tennant or myself, and the images were clearly culled from a porn site. The faces, attached by someone with a rudimentary knowledge of Photoshop, were David’s and mine. There were three different pictures for David, but all three of mine were the publicity shot from our chambers website.

‘The thing is,’ said Pushkas, ‘that while this is ridiculous, we can’t absolutely dismiss the claim, under the circumstances. Mr Tennant arrived in Miss Park’s office, and killed Miss Park’s husband. Some link to Miss Park is very plausible.’

‘Miss Park has never met David Tennant,’ said Sir Conn.

‘You seem very sure of that, sir.’

‘I am sure. Miss Park can’t keep a secret. Open book with transparent covers. I’m Head of Chambers and even I used to hear about her terrible dating stories. Very funny. Looked forward to it every Monday. And she loves David Tennant, it’s one of her things. I’d have known. We all would. End of story.’

‘However, Sir Conn, you see my point.’

‘I do, of course. But you seem mine. Dozens of witnesses to the event, and my client didn’t know the killer. Her husband is dead, she is shocked and confused, but she had nothing to do with this terrible crime.’

I suppose it seems strange, but that was the moment when the reality hit. I turned away from Sir Conn, twisting in the uncomfortable bucket of my plastic chair, and I was sick on the floor. ‘Oh God,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just…’

‘No, no,’ said Sir Conn. ‘Don’t worry. Let me get you home.’

‘I’m sorry, Sir Connaught, Miss Park,’ said Inspector Pushkas. ‘But the dozens of witnesses who saw David Tennant kill your husband also saw you and him talk extremely earnestly during the five minutes it took us to arrive. I need to know what he was saying.’

I didn’t want to say the lunatic things David said about the angels and demons, but I didn’t want to look as if I was hiding anything. Then I had a brainwave. ‘I’m very sorry,’ I said, as calmly as I could with the pile of sick at my feet, ‘but Mr Tennant asked me to be his lawyer. I am sure there would be no problem, but this is a very strange situation, I’m relatively inexperienced in terms of crime, and I’m worried about the boundaries of lawyer-client privilege, especially in a case with this profile. I am sure that Mr Tennant will agree for me to tell you what he said, but I have to take advice on that subject. I’m really sorry, and I’m sure I’ll be able to clear this all up as soon as I’ve spoken to him,’ I added, ‘I do want to help. I just, I mean, it would be terrible if I got it wrong and told you something inadmissible.’ Pushkas assented reluctantly.

‘Good girl,’ said Sir Conn, approvingly.

‘Mr Tennant will be ready for you in about twenty minutes,’ said Pushkas. ‘He’s been asking for you.’

‘May I get a breath of fresh air?’ I asked. Detective Inspector Pushkas nodded for the thin man to escort us. As we walked through the station, it seemed as if every officer was staring at us, including Rollo, who was trying to be reassuring. As we stepped through the door, there was an explosion of flashlights. Voices shouted, ‘Were you shagging David Tennant!’ and ‘Did he kill for love!’ and ‘Do you agree that this is the crime of the century!’

Chapter 8: What Rollo's Been Doing Since 1999

I looked from Rollo, the boy of my youthful dreams, who Cathy Calloway stole from me, to David Tennant, the man of my very adult dreams, who gripped in his left hand the severed head of Gavin Wishton, my husband, who Cathy Calloway had just been on my honeymoon with. This all seemed like Cathy Calloway’s fault. On the other hand, in the interests of full disclosure, Rollo and David were both looking at me very nicely, which made the situation better than it might otherwise have been. ‘You’re a policeman?’ I asked.

‘Actually,’ said Rollo, ‘I’m a strippogram.’

‘Oh, really, I…’

‘Yes, Mary Sue, I’m a policeman.’

‘I know, I know. I was joking. Like you did.’ He shouldn’t make jokes at a time like this.

‘Mr Tennant?’ said Rollo.

‘Yes, officer.’

‘You aren’t about to do anything stupid, are you?’

‘No.’

‘Good. I’d appreciate you lifting that head by the hair – yes, just like that – so forensics can get as clean a view of the neck as possible. Is that going to be a problem for you?’

‘No,’ said David Tennant. ‘That’ll be fine. I haven’t hurt Miss Park.’

‘I can tell that,’ said Rollo, ‘from the fact that I haven’t broken your nose.’

Rollo and David squared up to each other in a very subtle way, like two stags who have never had to worry about fighting because all other stags have always simply dipped their antlers and walked away. Cathy Calloway interrupted. ‘What are you talking about?’ she yelped. She still hadn’t recognised Rollo in his beard. ‘Why aren’t you arresting them?’

Rollo stood – he was still very tall – and Cathy finally realised who he was. She softened her face and prepared to unleash the breathy simper that I only heard when she was talking to boys. Rollo held up his hand. ‘Sorry, miss,’ he said. And his voice raised a level. ‘Everyone! I’d like you all to retreat about fifteen yards so we can set up a perimeter for forensics, who are the guys beetling in all around you in the black windcheaters with SOCO on the back, trying to pretend they’re in CSI.’ A swarm of police had arrived by now. ‘I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to take statements. It’ll take time, and we appreciate your forbearance.’ The assembled multitude didn’t mind one bit – a change is as good as a holiday, and all that. Rollo looked back to me and he said, ‘Don’t worry about anything, Ems. I’ll have SOCO look at you first, then we’ll get to the station, get you away from this mess.’

Everything happened like television, which was reassuring. Rollo arrested me, so he could stay nearby. He introduced me to the Detective Inspector, a comforting woman called Pushkas, who asked a few brief questions and then she’d speak to me properly at the station. I knew what to do for the forensics man, who treated me very differently from the way Rollo had, and who took my phone, sneering when I asked if I could quickly call my mother. When he’d finished, Rollo led me off to his car. Sir Connaught Sampson-Samson, my Head of Chambers, puffed heavily into our path. ‘Interesting times, Miss Park,’ he said.

‘I didn’t do anything, Sir Conn.’

‘Good enough for me. However, it is very possible, looking at the situation in the day’s cold light, that you will find yourself in need of an extremely good lawyer, such as myself. It would be an honour to…’

‘Sir Conn, I couldn’t!’

‘I know what you are thinking. How could you, a barrister of relatively junior status, possibly afford the services of Sir Connaught Sampson-Samson, lion of the law? Nil desperandum, old thing. I shall do this pro bono. Heard what happened with the famous slug Gavin and his houri. It will be an honour.’

‘But, Sir Conn…’

‘I know what you are thinking. Sir Connaught Sampson-Samson is a lion of the law, none lioner, but what could he possibly know of the grub and mucky byways of petty vulgar crimes like murder? Nil desperandum, for Sir C S-S, in his well-remembered youth, fought hard and often for the criminals, just for fun. Odd I’ve never told you that before.’ He had told me of course. He tells everyone. In 1964, he solved the Penge Bungalow Murders, alone and without a leader. It caused quite the stir, apparently. ‘Anyway, won’t take no for an answer, see you at the choky.’ He barrelled off to find his car.

Rollo sat with me in the back when his partner drove us to the station. ‘When did you become a policeman?’ I asked.

He put on a stupid charming face. ‘After uni, when I split up with, I mean, when Cathy dumped me, I went travelling, to clear my head. I didn’t know what to do. I meant to have a holiday, but when I was visiting my sister, who works for the UN in Nairobi, I wound up doing odd jobs around her office, and it snowballed somehow, and there I still was, five years later.’

‘Why did you come back?’

‘Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner,’ he said. ‘Here’s where I want to live, MS, always has been. But when I was in Nairobi, I was really helping people in trouble, and I couldn’t think what to do back here that would be as fulfilling.’

‘But?’ I asked.

‘In Africa, most of it, being rich gets you a completely different kind of law to everyone else. And then, suddenly, one day, I realised that was true everywhere, even in England, and right that moment I decided to be a policeman. I’m not joking, justice is like a mission for me.’

Somehow, when we arrived at the station, Cathy Calloway was already there. ‘She was planning it with David Tennant from the start,’ she said triumphantly. ‘She was shagging him. I have proof.’

Chapter 7: Some Reasons Why Cathy Calloway Was my Archenemy Long Before She Shagged My Husband on My Wedding Day

In my first month at Imperial College, London, I had the biggest crush you’ve ever seen on a third-year geographer called Rollo Price. In those initial, terrifying days at uni, I thought that everyone else was from another, superintelligent world, and I was a fraud (do you ever stop thinking that?). Cathy Calloway lived in the room next door to me. For a short time, I thought Cathy was my best friend; she thought she was the coolest girl in any room she was in, and she thought everyone else thought it too.

Late at night, when everyone had finished drinking excitedly in whoever’s room we had ended up in that night after the bar, I would crap on to Cathy about how beautiful Rollo was, and how he’d looked at me at lunchtime in a way that seemed to indicate he recognised me as someone he had once seen before, rather than as another nameless face in the adoring horde, or of how I'd watched Rollo playing rugby under the cover of giving support to Big Ginger Matt, who lived in the room below mine, and how amazingly he'd tricked some boy from Bristol by pretending to pass, but not passing. ‘It’s called a dummy, dummy!’ said Cathy.

‘Oh.’

‘You’ll learn!’ she said, patting my arm. ‘You have to be careful, though. Boys hate it when you seem keen.’

‘Really?’ I said. I’d certainly read that in magazines. I was not very experienced when I got to university. I’d been to a secluded boarding school where some girls seemed to talk a lot about sex, very knowingly, very much in the way Cathy Calloway did, but not with me. I’d been kissed a couple of times at parties, but more by luck than judgement, and I mean bad luck.

‘Absolutely, darling,’ said Cathy. ‘You’ve been mooning over him for a fortnight. He’ll be bored of you by now. Do you want me to put in a good word? I’ll do that if you want? But whatever you do, you have to ignore him totally, or if you can’t ignore him, at least be rude. Okay?’

‘Thanks, Cathy,’ I said. I wasn’t certain she knew what she was talking about, but I thought she was from another, more confident planet (which wasn’t totally unperceptive, in retrospect). And so I watched her spend a week chatting with Rollo in the bar, giggling every time he opened his mouth, clutching his forearm, running her finger along his latest cuts and bruises. She would tell me that everything was going well, and she was building up trust prior to setting us up on a date, and I would believe her (which shows I was totally unperceptive, in retrospect).

Then, dancing one night at St Mary’s, where Cathy had dragged me because we knew the rugby team would be there, I got separated from everyone but a big, sweet, Canadian guy, who insisted on walking me home. I invited the Canadian in for tea, because you could do that back then without it meaning anything, and we listened for an hour to Cathy shouting ecstatically to Rollo next door that he was, ‘Amazing, again, oh, God, amazing,’ and her bed thudding against the wall again and again and again and again and again and again, and, ‘I’m coming again, oh my God, how do you do it Rollo, you’re amazing, oh my God, Rollo.’ I still swear she raised her voice every time she said ‘Rollo,’ but maybe I’m imagining it.

The Canadian said, ‘Rollo really fancied you, you know, when you arrived, but you were totally uninterested.’

Cathy said, ‘I’m sorry darling, but we were so drunk, and we danced, and it was, I mean, so strong, he’s like a wild animal, and I couldn’t resist, and some of the things he did!’ she smiled seraphically. ‘I’m just saying: Oh. My. God!’ Then she held my hand, and said, ‘You don’t mind, do you darling, because, it’s not like anything ever happened between you guys, it was just a little crush.’ But she could see that I knew, and although we never said anything about it ever, from then on, secretly, we were best of enemies.

Cathy’s brazenness should seem funny after all these years, but it doesn’t. Instead, I look back, and even now, I still think of what might have been if I had not been such an idiot. There’s nothing to be done. She shagged Rollo loudly all that year, and a couple of other guys behind his back (‘They mean nothing, darling, they’re just practise. Don’t judge me, it’s just the way I am. I know I can trust you, girls don’t tell or ALL other girls hate them!’). She dumped Rollo as soon as he graduated, and spent the next two years sleeping with professional footballer who played for Chelsea.

And now, here she was, having just returned from my honeymoon, which she’d spent shagging my husband, whose dripping head was now sitting on the floor by my knee, teetering over the cobbles on three inch heels and waving at a tall, bearded policeman. ‘It was her!’ she shrieked. ‘It was that fat bitch on the floor! She killed him in revenge. She made David Tennant kill him with a sword!’ She was shrieking, but her eyes were cold.

The policeman advanced slowly. His partner, a black woman whose dyed orange hair poked from under her helmet, tried to hold him back, but he didn’t seem afraid. He squatted in front of me and said gently, ‘Is everything okay, Mary Sue? Are you alright?’

It was Rollo.

Chapter 6: How Does My Archenemy Know David Tennant?

My triumphant bitchcow archenemy Cathy Calloway was standing next to two policemen at the South entrance to Gray’s Inn Square square. As I looked, more policemen rushed in behind her. Next to me, David Tennant shook his head wearily, and said, ‘I’ve been so stupid. I’m sorry, Mary Sue.'

‘What is it?’

David looked at the circle of barristers – at my colleagues and all the people I saw every day – edging around us ghoulishly, as the police decided how to approach, and he rose to his knees.’ ‘No!’ he commanded. ‘No closer.’ Everyone froze, out of respect for what he had in his hand. I would have done. David dropped back to his knees, and whispered urgently to me, barely audible,

‘That will give us two minutes, at best. There isn’t time for me to explain properly, but she’s one of them.’

‘Cathy Calloway is a demon!’

‘I know it’s unbelievable, but…’

‘No. I’m totally not surprised.’ It was the first thing he’d said all day that made sense. It’s not that I didn’t believe he was an angel, or that there was an evil Master trying to get hold of me because I was the Chosen One, but a small voice inside me said I only believed these things because he was David Tennant, and I was in complete meltdown after seeing him cut off my husband’s head. But Cathy Calloway being a demon – that was a no-brainer. ‘How do you know? Why couldn’t you tell before?’

‘When we are enraged, joyful or triumphant, we lose control of our eyes. If you know what to look for, you can see it then. She’s enraged.’

‘Is that how you knew about Gavin?’

‘When I heard what happened at the wedding, we knew he couldn’t be who he’d seemed. He fooled us too. So, we let them know I would coming to see you today, and I thought he’d come after me.’

‘It was a trap!’

‘Yes. We couldn’t let him get so close to you again. But I didn’t know about her.’ He nodded at Cathy Calloway. ‘I’ve known her a very long time. I should have realised she’d be involved in this.’

‘Have you fought her before?’

‘I…’ David Tennant stopped. ‘There isn’t time.’

‘Are you alright, MS?’ called Dinky, my clerk. ‘Don’t touch her, Tennant, you creep,’ she added.

‘She’s perfectly safe, Miss Wiseman. And she’s extremely lucky to have you clerking for her. I would not prefer another clerk in this courtyard.’

‘Thank you,’ said Dinky, blushing.

‘How do you do that?’ I said.

‘It’s just manners.’ He looked around us again. The police seemed finally to be getting their act together. ‘Okay, this is it. I’ll be taken away in a moment, but you’ll see me at the station.’

‘Where’s the sword?’ I asked. ‘It was three feet long, and I can’t see it.’

David Tennant just winked, and then he seemed to think of something. He leant towards me, and said urgently, ‘Don’t trust the French.’

‘The French?’

‘Come on, Mary Sue,’ David Tennant hissed. ‘I know you’re not stupid – the French have elected a fascist.’

‘But it was an electoral accident, basically.’

‘That’s how it always looks, Mary Sue. But le Pen is President now. He’s already tightened border controls and started crowing about la Gloire. He’s screwing Europe in Brussels, and his bribing his people hand over fist.’

‘That’s politics,’ I said, unsure at the direction this was taking. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘Everyone’s too young,’ said David Tennant, shaking his head ruefully. ‘You’re all too young. You don’t understand how fragile this all is. Don’t trust the French.’

‘Is le Pen another demon?’

‘Of course he is. That’s why we had to get Boris to stand.’ He looked at me sharply, and said, ‘You did vote for him, didn’t you?’

‘What?’

‘You voted for Boris Johnson? For mayor?’

‘I…’ I looked at him. This seemed important. ‘Is he one of you? An angel?’

‘Of course. He’s a played the part before. I’m really surprised no one’s noticed.’

‘What part?’

‘Believe me, with what’s happening in France, people are going to be very grateful for Boris. He won’t break, and he loves this little island. I honestly think he’s the only one enjoying what’s going on.’

‘Is le Pen the Master?’

‘I don’t think so – the Master could be anyone. None of us know what he looks like this time round, and his eyes are very guarded. You will only know when he really lets go, when he’s sure he’s won. That’s why you can’t trust anyone.’

‘I can’t do this.’

‘Yes you can, Mary Sue. We’ve been watching you, and we know you can. You’re much stronger than you think. How many lives have you already saved?’

‘Er, none!’

‘Er, actually, at least, seven.’ I looked blankly at David Tennant. ‘Those children you rescued when you were swimming off Sennen Cove?’

‘They’d have probably…’

‘They’d have died. And three times you’ve stopped people falling onto tube tracks in rush hour.’

‘Everyone must have…’

‘Almost no one has. You saw them toppling as the train came, and you saved their lives. That almost never happens. And twice in traffic, when… You won’t even remember. You don’t realise, but I promise you, actively saving seven lives is not nothing.’ I looked at him. I remembered these things, but they were so easy to do, and they were over so quickly. It was hardly as if I’d gone to Africa and snatched children from warlord kidnappers trying to turn them into drug-crazed soldiers.

‘What are you DOING!’ screamed the voice of Cathy Calloway. She was standing at the edge of the circle, hands on enraged hips, shouting at a tall bearded policeman who she wasn’t really looking at. She was looking at me, practically licking her lips.

‘Don’t worry, Mary Sue,’ said David Tennant. ‘You’re stronger than her. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.’

Chapter 5: Chosen One

David Tennant held my husband’s head by its floppy blonde hair, and flashed his stupid grin at the stunned barristers standing around the square, the grin that even I think he uses too often. Then he looked up at my window, shrugged his shoulders and mouthed, ‘Sorry.’

I was numb. Blood was dripping from Gavin onto the cobbles. Gavin’s eyes were open, and although I was too far away to see, really, it felt as if he were looking at me, pleading that, alright, okay, he was wrong to shag Cathy Calloway on our wedding night and then take her on our honeymoon when I refused to go, but still it was an overreaction on my part to get David Tennant to cut his head off. ‘Come on, Mary Sue!’ Miss Smallbone was holding my arm, I realised, and trying to drag me towards the door. ‘We must hurry.’ Glancing back once, I let her pull me out of my door.

The whole building, the whole square in fact, was emptying into the sunny courtyard, forming a ring ten-deep around the grisly scene. Miss Smallbone cut us through the crowd as if it wasn’t there. As we emerged, someone said, ‘Don’t go near him! The police are coming! He’s still got the knife!’

‘It’s a sword!’ said someone else.

‘I’d be able to see it if he had a sword. It must be a knife.’

‘He couldn’t have cut the guy’s head off with a knife.’

‘Yeah, genius, where’s the sword? Is he sitting on it? Je crois que non! You idiot. I’ll have your ass when we go to court with the Titchborne claim!’

By this point, Miss Smallbone and I had reached David. I could have sworn he’d used a sword, but I couldn’t see it now, and I also couldn’t see where he’d have put it. I looked at Gavin’s head as if I were dreaming, but before I could speak, David said, very quietly, so only I could hear him. ‘Forget Gavin. We have to speak quickly, while you’re still receptive.’

‘I loved him!’

‘You met him via the internet after going on seventeen dates with morons, and the reason you “clicked” is that he seemed to share your every interest, it was spooky, and he listened when you spoke, and he described himself as “cheeky,” which he wasn’t, but it’s an adjective you approve of on a fundamental, internalised level that indicates to me that you’ve never really thought about it and all you really mean is “not-boring.” You were nearly thirty and all your friends were getting married, or had been in relationships for years, and Gavin, although he wasn’t “cheeky,” was crazy about you, and within three months he was speaking about weddings and kids. He never flipped your stomach, but you looked at the older people you know with marriages you admire, and you remembered the things your parents’ friends have always said, that you come to love the one you’re with if you build on the foundations of friendship and trust, and you decided to go with it. You turned him down in Amsterdam after ten weeks, but when he proposed on Chesil Beach six months ago, you’d persuaded yourself that it really was the sensible thing to do, even though by then you had already started idly flicking through dating websites again, hoping for a lightning bolt, which you carried on doing until a week before the wedding. Your whole future life is based on faith in something you don’t really believe and have never even glimpsed. Forget Gavin.’

I gulped. Then I said, in a small voice, ‘He didn’t deserve to die.’

‘He was here because he found out I was going to see you. He came to kill me.’ I looked dumbly. ‘Gavin never loved you. He was sent by The Master. At first, I think, they wanted to kill you, but when The Master saw your picture, he decided you were someone he might be able to corrupt, to turn to the dark side.’

‘You are insane.’

‘Why aren’t you running?’ I didn’t know. Something about him seemed absolutely trustworthy.

‘You’re the Chosen One,’ he said. Sirens were pulling up outside the square. ‘We haven’t got much time. Miss Smallbone will explain the rest later…’

‘Where is she?’ I said, suddenly realising that Miss Smallbone was no longer at my shoulder.

‘She had to escape before the police arrive. It wasn’t safe for her. She’ll find you later. Sorry, I just have to say this all quickly: everything you know about how the world works is half-right, at best. Politics, money, etc., are the visible tip of an eternal struggle between good and evil. I am good, Gavin was evil.’ David Tennant’s hand was warm as it held mine. I was still in shock. It was alright to be in a mentally distracted state. He was a nutter, but I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. I looked at Gavin’s head again, and tears welled up.

‘Good. It’s good you feel like that, because it shows you’re one of us. The Master will try to use that against you. He’ll send other agents. You can’t trust anyone except Miss Smallbone.’

‘This is ridiculous. I’m not the, the whatever you said, the Chosen One.’

‘I wish you weren’t, said David Tennant. ‘It puts you in the gravest imaginable danger, but you are, and you will have to deal with it, as others have before you.’

‘What happened to the others. What have I been chosen for?’

‘This generation’s “final battle.” There always is one, and we have always won so far, which is why it hasn’t been the real final battle. The real final battle is the one we lose.’

‘Why me?’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t have time,’ he said, looking at me with tenderness, pity and something else, something very strong that might have been love. Obviously he didn’t love me. I was being silly because of the shock. ‘You’ll see me in jail, Mary Sue, but until then, you have to be careful. We’re protecting you, of course, we have been for years, but we don’t know what The Master looks like this time, he hasn’t revealed himself. He’s clever, and dangerous, and if he wins, it is the end. I’m sorry,’ he said, with his trademark rueful smile. ‘It’s like waking from a dream and finding you’re in a nightmare. The world is angels and demons. It’s hope, conspiracies, power and destruction, and the end of everything you know is a heartbeat away. At least you’re on the side of the angels.’ There was a noise behind my back, and suddenly the hum of the assembled crowd was deafening. David Tennant looked past me, and his eyes widened in shock. ‘Of course!’ he said. ‘Now I understand. What an evil fortune. And I am already weary.’

I turned, and there was Cathy Calloway, my archenemy, pointing us out to the police.

WEEKEND ONE

Hi people.

As I say in the ABOUT section over to the right, I'm posting new chapters every week-day only, which gives me the leeway to guarantee never falling behind. However, like every blogger since time began, I have become utterly obsessed with my site statistics. There have been 176 individual readers, 104 of whom have only visited once, three after looking up David Tennant on Google. Those three did not stay for longer than ten seconds. Like I care. Visitors who have arrived via blogger spend the most time on the site, on average. My friend Marie has been an excellent source of visitors, so big up Marie. You should read Marie's book - it's really good.

In international news, I am concerned that my Czech and Swiss readers both stopped after two visits. I am gaining in strength in America and Western Europe, but at such low levels that one reader abandoning me will create a statistical catastrophe. Also: some small antipodean interest; my friend Matt-from Japan is a keen reader; my friend Matt-from-Vietnam has only been once; Africa and South America are a dead loss so far, but I'm hopeful.

I am, predictably, also obsessed with the comments.

What I am saying, overall, is: I thought this would be an excellent project for my current busy time, because it takes so little time to write the new chapters and I can do it over my first cup of tea, before I officially start work. But the site analysis obsession is turning into a monster, which I have to get a grip on. I can do this. I totally can.

More on Monday. Ciao ciao.

Chapter 4: There's Nothing Special About Me

Miss Smallbone looked out of the window, haloed by the bright sun. I stared at her, unblinking, and the halo appeared brighter and brighter until Miss Smallbone seemed almost to disappear into the light. Still I refused to blink. My eyes started to water, and eventually she vanished completely. It was very comforting until my mind’s eye replaced the glare by replaying, for the millionth time, the hideous vision of my husband shagging Cathy Colloway.

So that was it. Of course David Tennant had not come to visit me, and probably I had invented the now invisible Miss Smallbone as well. I was having a delayed mental spasm. I know people who are very proud of their sanity, like my pontificating neighbour in Chambers, but my mother always told me that those are the ones you’ve got to watch.

The hideous vision in my mind’s eye was in super high definition, as if in close up on a television so expensive that even I, a reasonably successful young barrister, could not afford unless I got married to another reasonably successful young barrister, like Gavin, who I had got married to, but who I wasn’t married to any more, not in any significant sense like him buying me big televisions on which to watch visions of him have sex with someone else. The picture in my mind’s eye, which I believe some brain scientists might call a ‘memory,’ is the one I saw when I got off the lift on the wrong floor in my hotel, still in my wedding dress (halter-neck cream sheath, rose-buds, short oval train spreading in satiny, semi-circular ripples) and decided to climb the stairs instead of waiting for another. Standing with his back to me in corner of the stairwell was Gavin, the trousers of his morning suit (hired, though I had begged him to buy one) around his ankles, pasty buttocks juddering. He has quite good legs, albeit covered in ginger fuzz. There are always spots on his bottom, which, please don’t hate me, I liked squeezing. There was a ripe one low on his left buttock. Cathy Calloway had spent the day looking beautiful in the kind of floaty English summer dress that only rock stars and aristocrats can get away with, because it only looks amazing if it looks like you’ve just thrown it on. Her silver slippers hooked together in the shelf above Gavin’s heaving bum, and however hard I examine the super-high-definition picture, I can find no flaw in her rocking, bored-seeming legs.

She saw me when she stretched her arms (perfect, one platinum bangle) behind Gavin’s head to check her watch. She registered my shock, saw that the die was cast, started moaning and grinding like someone in a film, and bit Gavin’s earlobe. All this time, her eyes never left mine, and she never stopped smiling. Finally, I regained control over my body, or lost it completely, and I was sick. Gavin didn’t notice, because he was coming. Cathy grinned wider, and whispered in Gavin’s ear, loud enough for me to hear, ‘Look behind you, big boy.’

The reason I froze when I saw them locked together was that the picture of them together was so unreal. Not just shocking, but unreal. I don’t think I am being vain, but… Okay. Here it is. One of the things that shocked me was that, in my head, Gavin was lucky to have got me, and here he was, on our wedding day, when he should have been grateful, shagging someone so far out of his league that she might as well have been playing a different game.

This is a really embarrassing admission for me. It’s bad to look at people and judge them like that, not so very far away from saying one type of person is ‘better’ than another type, which I’m sensitive to, like any mixed race girl who went to an almost-all-white English public school. But, hidden in my crappy soul, I clearly believed that I was a better catch than Gavin. I know I’m not hideous – there have always been boys who are interested – and my friends say I’m funny, though they’re my friends, so who can trust them? And anyway, Gavin’s not bad. He’s a bit boring, but he’s got great prospects, which we girls are supposed to value. And he was never actually an arse until the day of the wedding, when he seemed to have a personality transplant.

Okay. In the interests of strict honesty, one of the reasons I thought I was out of his league was that three of my best friends told me, quite separately, early on in the relationship, that I could do better. And late on, they asked if I was sure. I pretended to be offended, but the reason I was irritated was that deep down I thought they might be right, but it was easy for them to say, because they all had long-term boyfriends and husbands. If I’d been properly angry, I wouldn’t have invited them to the wedding.

But in spite of wrongly thinking I was out of Gavin’s league, it’s not as if I think I’m amazing. I do know some amazing people. My pontificating neighbour, for instance, played international rugby until he mangled his knee, and then, instead of getting depressed about it, he became a barrister and set up a huge Charitable Foundation simply by asking a load of city boys asking them to put a quarter of a single year’s bonus into it. That’s amazing, and I’m just not. It was a sad day for me when I realised that I would never be Lord Chief Justice or marry a prince, but it was also not a sad day, because if you live your life dreaming of things like that, you will always be disappointed.

So here I was, having a mental spasm. I had imagined David Tennant in my office, and I had imagined him saying I was ‘the Chosen One.’ My brain wanted me to be special, and after what had happened with Gavin, who could blame it? I blinked a few times. Miss Smallbone was still there. I didn’t know how she fitted into the spasm. Was I so far gone that Chambers had sent for help? ‘Are you a psychiatrist?’ I asked. ‘Am I going crazy?’

‘Snap out of it, Mary Sue,’ she replied. We don’t have time for this. I want you to be thinking clearly, so that you are receptive to a real shock, which is when your mind will open to what we have to tell you.’

‘I can’t believe you don’t think I’m shocked! I’m totally in shock. I imagined you came in here with David Tennant!’

‘I’m sorry about this,’ she said, and looked back out of the window. ‘Gavin’s back from Mauritius.’

‘How do you know?’ She said nothing, her gaze fixed on the courtyard. I heard a shout and rushed to join her just in time to see David Tennant cut off my husband’s head with a glittering sword.

Chapter 3: Doctor What?

‘You’re even prettier in the flesh,’ David Tennant smiled. ‘And I’ve heard about your work. I can see what the Master was afraid of.’

The things he was saying didn’t make sense, but I’d been watching Doctor Who long enough not to let that worry me. What I cared about was that this was DAVID TENNANT. I love David Tennant. And he really was lovelier in the flesh. His eyes were melting chocolate, and he was clean-shaven but not as pale as you sometimes worry he might be. He was wearing jeans and a blue suit jacket, a grey v-neck sweater, and scruffy-but-in-a-cool-way felt shoes with those upturned rubber snuffly noses, which is a type of shoe I don’t like but it worked for him. Oh, he was still talking.

‘Sorry?’ I said.

‘My people said it was dangerous me coming here, but I had to see you for myself,’ he said. Standing behind him, I registered, was a short, neat-looking woman, scrutinising me through thick glasses. She wore a black trouser suit and a white shirt, and she didn’t have a sign around her neck saying ‘solicitor’, but I suppose barristers can always tell in the same way that criminals always recognise policemen. David Tennant noticed my gaze, and he said, very carefully, ‘This is Penny Smallbone. She is overjoyed to meet you.’

Miss Smallbone unpursed her lips very slightly, and gave a tiny, reluctant nod. She said, ‘It’s not as if we have any choice. You’re the one, whether we like it or not.’

This was all very thrilling, on one level, but it was utterly surreal. ‘Mr Tennant,’ I said.

‘Call me David.’

‘David.’ I didn’t know what to ask even.

‘You want to know what I’m doing here?’ he said. I nodded. ‘It’s very simple. I’m going to need a lawyer.’

‘What have you… I mean, what for? What have you been accused of?’

‘At the moment, nothing. But very soon, I think I might be accused of murder.’ At which point he did that thing he sometimes does when he’s thinking on screen, looking up and to one side, and clenching the jaw so his neck goes taught. I know all his mannerisms. I’m the biggest David Tennant fan in the world, whatever all the other single thirtysomethings in Britain think. I mean, I had only just started being single again, but the romance with Gavin had been a whirlwind, lasting twelve months from meeting to wedding-slash-apocalypse, and my feelings for David Tennant were fully formed before that even started. Thus: I wasn’t one of the new fans that sprouted up like ugly little toadstools after his first appearance on Doctor Who. I’ve had a real, proper crush on him ever since he played the doomed and dreamy Campbell Bain in Takin’ Over the Asylum in 1994. I’ve seen him on stage about ten times. I loved him in What the Butler Saw, early on, and even his iffy American accent in Lobby Hero didn’t put me off.

Gavin used to hate me even watching Doctor Who. I’d tell him that he was being irrational, that my feelings for David Tennant were part of a long-running personal joke I shared with millions of other hormonal women, but he never let it go. He used to say, ‘You have no idea what he’s like! I’ve heard he’s actually a total bastard. A friend of a friend went out on a couple of dates with him, and, in the taxi, he basically assaulted her.’ It was obvious that Gavin was lying, and it really pissed me off. I know why he was doing it now, of course.

David was still looking at me. I had to say something. ‘Er.’ A typically brilliant and eloquent start. ‘I’d be very glad to help you, incredibly glad actually, but I do intellectual property. You need a criminal barrister. I could recommend someone, but…’

‘Mary Sue Park,’ he said looking distractedly out of the window. ‘You’re the one that I want, the one I need… Oh yes indeed.’ And he flashed me that smile while Miss Smallbone rolled her eyes.

‘You’re my only hope.’

‘Why me?’ I asked.

‘Because of the prophecy.’ He looked at Miss Smallbone, and she shook her head. ‘I’d like to tell you why, but you wouldn’t believe me. You need to be in a state of shock. And now, for me, a comfort break. Just outside this door on the left?’ I nodded, and he swept outside.

I looked at Miss Smallbone, and she looked at me. ‘What was that about shock?’ I asked.
‘Shock has a cauterising effect on the beta-functions of the brain-stem,’ she said, primly. ‘Under certain circumstances, it allows the brain to reawaken its primary learning capacity, to rewire itself according to a different conceptions of reality. Unless you are in shock when we tell you, you will go into denial.’

‘My husband is on our honeymoon with my archenemy. How much more shocked do you want me to be?’

‘You weren’t shocked to lose him. You knew all along that he wasn’t the one for you.’

‘I loved him.’

‘Whatever you say.’ She was at the window, and she seemed distracted suddenly by something happening outside.

‘This is a dream,’ I said.

‘No,’ replied Miss Smallbone, turning her smooth round face to me with utmost seriousness. ‘No, it is not. It’s a nightmare.’

Chapter 2: Strange Days

It was not just me, I tried to tell myself. These were strange days for everyone. Admittedly, not everyone had been abandoned on their wedding day and returned to David Tennant in their office, but still, it was a really weird year.

The weather, for one thing. While the rest of Europe baked in a long hot summer, the angry God of Rain had squatted over Britain like a great fat toad. There were floods everywhere, and blackouts, and people panicking about drinking water. My next-door neighbour in chambers, who is one of those pontificating people, was really gleeful about it all. He said things like, ‘Why are people surprised? As soon as there were blackouts in LA and New York, anyone with a brain could see this was going to be a feature of the 21st century.’ I don’t think I’d ever seen him so happy.

It wasn’t just the floods. Each day seemed to bring at least one piece of news which, even when it wasn’t earth-shattering, added to the general weirdness, be it Graham Norton getting married to Liz Hurley, The French electing Le-Pen-the-fascist, or Posh Spice winning an Oscar for reprising the Kim Novak role in the remake of Vertigo. Today’s lunacy, in which I had played my own tiny part, was Boris Johnson becoming Mayor of London.

In my determination to appear normal when I went to work, I’d forgotten about the election. It was only when I popped out of the office for a late lunch that I saw the Evening Standard headlines. The skinny man who runs the kiosk near Chancery Lane tube, who I think must once have been much bigger, because the tattoos on his forearms are all collapsed and scrunched, was putting a new billboard into his slot. Out went, THAMES FLOODS RUN WHILE YOU CAN, and in came, BONKERS BORIS MAYOR 12 HOURS NO GAFFES YET.

I’d voted for Boris, and I was literally not alone. He was fun, he was obviously clever, and my dad told me to. He said – my dad, not Boris – that Ken and Boris were similar peas from different pods. They were mavericks who were strong enough to ignore their parties and do what was best for London. Ken had done fine, but he’d been there long enough to start to feel entitled. The polls had predicted the result, but seeing Boris gurning out of the Standard was still freaky. The headline next to his face ran, ‘How Safe is the Tube?’

I hate the Evening Standard. One day, in its wildest dreams, it will get to run the headline, TUBE STRIKE GRANNY KILLED BY KNIFE WIELDING TEEN IN HEATWAVE FLOOD TERROR PANIC. But the real reason I hate it is not that it is a scaremongering trashrag, but because of what it says about me: when I saw the Boris/tube headline, I instantly thought, ‘Oh no! Has this election really screwed up my commute? That would be a nightmare!’ The Standard is like the horrible boy at the back of the class who, the precise day you know you have achieved the perfect weight for your height, and it is brilliantly your sixteenth birthday, says, ‘Morning, Mary Sue. Eat all your cakes for breakfast?’

I thought about the Evening Standard again as my clerk showed David Tennant through my door. A few days earlier, the day I came back from Cornwall, when there had obviously been a terrible dearth of granny-slayings and flooded tube chaos, and the billboards near my house had read, DOCTOR WHODUNNIT? Predictably, like everyone else who fancies David Tennant, which is almost everyone I’ve ever met, I immediately bought the paper to find out what it was all about, cursing myself for handing over the money.

It was quite a funny story, actually. David Tennant had gone to his private gym for his regular morning swim, but when he emerged, someone had broken into his locker and stolen his clothes. He told the police that nothing valuable had been taken, and it was just a prank. What is interesting is that yesterday, I myself went for a swim. I was just about to jump into the water when I realised that I’d forgotten my goggles. I returned to my locker, and there was a strange woman trying to open it. ‘That’s my locker,’ I said.

The woman spun round, calm as you please, and looked down at her key. She said she was terribly sorry, but she was short-sighted and must have wandered up the wrong aisle. This morning, I told this story to my pontificating neighbour in chambers, and I said that it was like what had happened to David Tennant a few days ago.

My neighbour said, ‘the human mind is obsessed with making patterns, Mary Sue. It’s why medieval peasants looked at a dying cow and said there must be a witch. It’s why people look at the floods and say a great fat toad rain god must be angry. The idea that you and David Tennant have a secret, unknown connection is one you have magicked up from scraps of evidence that have other, more logical explanations, simply because you fancy David Tennant.’

Well, as it turned out, I was right, and my neighbour was wrong.

Chapter 1: I Woke Alone in My Marriage Bed

I won’t describe the wedding I'd dreamed about for twenty years, because all happy weddings are alike. All catastrophic marriages, however, are catastrophic in their own way. After the reception, we stayed in the same hotel as our friends. I somehow got separated from Gavin in the bar. I presumed he’d gone to our room, I followed him, I took a wrong turning and I found him and Cathy Calloway in a stairwell, on two legs, grinding.

Cathy Calloway was my blonde bombshell secret archenemy all through university and law school. No one knew we hated each other, and we couldn’t tell anyone. Even when Gavin and I were hacking people off our guest list, I was not brave enough to cull her. I wonder what would have happened if I had tried. And this was all before I knew Cathy was an embodiment of ancient evil who wanted to destroy the world.

When I screamed at them, Gavin carried me to our room. He said it was a moment of madness, and the first time, etc., etc., but he was lying. Then he said, ‘This is your fault. You were the one who wanted today. You were desperate to get married. I’m not responsible for this.’

‘Get out,’ I said.

‘Where do I sleep? The hotel’s full.’ He paused. ‘I’d have to stay with Cathy. You don’t want that, surely?’

‘Get out.’

‘Come on, popsie. We don’t want this hanging over the honeymoon.’

‘The honeymoon! There’s not going to be a… What are you thinking of? There’s not going to be a honeymoon. I never want to see you again.’

He went on the honeymoon with Cathy. ‘It’s non-refundable,’ he said on the phone, ‘And if you’re going to be stupid about it, I don’t see that I have any choice.’ I told our friends what had happened, and then I went to my parents’ cottage in Cornwall for a week.

My dad (Korean, brain surgeon, amateur composer) and my mum (100% Surrey, French teacher) said they had never liked Gavin, which was a lie. They were surprised by Cathy, though, who was such a lovely girl. People were always surprised by Cathy. She was such an obvious bitchcow. She treated people terribly, and then she batted her eyes as if she were confused, as if she could hardly blamed when another rabbit threw itself under her wheels.

A week later, I went back to the flat in West Hampstead which, thank God, I’d owned before Gavin moved in. I thought of dumping his stuff in the street, but I had it delivered to his chambers instead. Cathy and Gavin were both members of the chambers next door to mine in South Square, in Gray’s Inn. I would see them every day, all the time. I thought this was the worst thing in the world, but, like I say, I didn’t know about the nightmare struggle about good and evil back then.

I returned to work two days later because I couldn’t think what else to do, and because life must go on, and because of a host of golden platitudes. South Square is a beautiful courtyard surrounded by sets of chambers. The grass was lush emerald from the soaking summer, and the whole yard looked washed. I cycled from West Hampstead, and I had been very determined when I set off, but as I saw everyone striding in, heads up, briefcases gleaming, suddenly I couldn’t face it. I cut straight out of the south exit, went round the corner, and had my hair cut shorter than it’s been since I was a teenager. Then I bought a suit. I was being borderline unstable, but I had good reason. Anyway, it worked. I felt almost normal when I walked back into the square. New day, new life, new hair, new Mary Sue.

There were pitying eyes at every window. Barristers shag like bunnies and gossip like housewives. Everyone in the square knew what had happened. I lowered my eyes, mumbled a couple of hellos, tried to pull open the door to 11A South Square which you need to push, got inside eventually, and bolted upstairs to my room.

A minute later, Dinky rapped on the door. She’s my clerk, and she has a very definite knock. She’s five foot two, professionally tanned and blonded, and people think she’s got false breasts but they’re just nature’s bounty. We think she’s from a big East End crime family. She said, ‘If I were you, darling, I’d kill him. No, correct that, I’d have him killed.’ I stared up at her. ‘Metaphorically. I bought you tea. I know you don’t like sugar but I put in four. Don’t argue.’ I wanted to be alone. Dinky sat down. ‘They all knew about Cathy and Gavin next door. They’ve known for months. I’ve been speaking to the rest of chambers. We’re right behind you. This is war with 11B. There’s always been something about those buggers. Ok, have a good cry, I’ll leave you alone. Drink that tea.’

Chambers can be like family. I had solicitous visits all day. Then, at four, not having done a stroke of work because I didn’t have a stroke of work to do, Dinky knocked again. ‘Darling, I’ve got someone for you.’

‘What?’

‘I was going to keep things off your desk, obviously, but…’ Dinky was hesitant, which I had never seen before. And she looked nervous, even flushed. ‘I think you’ll…’ She stopped and looked at me in what might very nearly have been wonder and said, ‘He asked for you personally.’

‘Show him in.’

Everything that happened before she came back in the room seems like another world to me now. Gavin and Cathy are part of it, of course, but it’s incredible I had no idea before. Not about the affair, but all the other stuff. I was so stupid.

The door opened, and my jaw dropped. ‘Hello, Mary Sue,’ said David Tennant. ‘I have been looking forward to this for a long time.’