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.