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.’