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.’