Johnny Depp piloted the future-jet into the enfolding Californian night, its engines howling like things you wouldn’t believe, the whole plane shaking. He pointed the nose, it seemed, at the stars, and my stomach was left on the ground. Not for the first or most enjoyable time that night, I felt a visceral sense of the power of someone or something else thrum through me, and my breathing deepened. I was trying to organise the mostly disturbing implications of this thought process when I fell asleep.
I mean, fair enough, right? I’d spent a day and a half drugged, and a day pretending to be drugged, I’d escaped rapists and murderers, killed my first bad guys and I’d had the best sex of my life (to that point). I was a long way past my limit, and even so I might have told my body to stay awake had my body interrogated me as to my preferences, so it didn’t.
Four hours later, Johnny shook me gently, and handed me a vacuum mug of coffee. On the way to America, it had been Vanessa Paradis who woke me like this. The future-jet thundered through the night, only it wasn’t really the night. We were in sunshine, but above the canopy, the sky was blue-black. Or rather, there was a thin wash of blue sky, if you were looking for it, but mainly there was the black of space. ‘How high are we?’ I asked.
‘High,’ Johnny replied, in the dull voice he’d spoken in since I told him that the Teacher was dead.
‘Where are we going?’
‘London. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes’
‘What are we going to do?’
‘I don’t know.’ The satiny sky was incredibly beautiful. At first sight, the cabin had seemed sparse and military, but it was actually surprisingly luxurious. If, and this is what I was assuming, this was one of the stealth planes that the Americans spend a billion on a time, or however absurd much it is, then I wasn’t surprised that they’d made it incredibly comfy, NOR that they’d done everything they could to pretend that this was not the case, in case it looked as if any of the billion dollars were being wasted. ‘The Teacher was our leader,’ said Johnny. ‘There wasn’t anyone else. He must have left us a plan.’
‘So? Can’t you find out what it is?’
‘I’m not telling the others that the Teacher is dead over a radio. You will tell them, face-to-face. And then, well, someone will have been told what to do next. The Teacher never leaves loose ends.’
‘Maybe David Tennant knows.’
‘Tennant,’ said Johnny Depp, and his lip curled in exactly the same way Vanessa Paradis’s had when she said David Tennant’s name. On one level, this was perfectly understandable, since David Tennant had been an evil demon for millions of reincarnations, but he came over to the right side when he fathered me. I opened my mouth to protest, but Johnny stopped me. ‘You don’t know about Tennant, whatever you think.’
‘The Teacher trusts him,’ I said.
I assumed this would be a clinching argument, given the relentless Teacher-reverence, but Johnny said, ‘You don’t know the Teacher. He sees things you couldn’t imagine, and he takes risks you’ll never believe. Vanessa and I, and we’re not the only ones, think that Tennant is still the Master’s pet. If he is, the Teacher will know it. We think the Teacher has let Tennant think he is one of us, year after year, and has let him report back to the Master, so that in the end, at the time of crisis, we can tell one perfect lie, and the Master will believe it, and it will have been worth every betrayal. You don’t want to hear this, because he is your father, but it is what we think.’
‘Presumably the Teacher will have included that in any instructions.’
‘Presumably.’
I had a sudden thought. ‘Will the Teacher have said where my mother is?’ I asked.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘But…’
‘The Teacher said she’d done enough, that she was spent. Guinevere was the best of us, before Grebulon got hold of her.’ Johnny Depp spat the real, ancient, demon name of Lancelot/David Tennant. Johnny carried on, ‘If it is right for the Teacher to have told us, then the Teacher will have told us, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope. Right. I have to prepare.’
‘Where are we landing?’
‘A private strip on one of our estates in North London. We’ll have been flying off radar till now, but we’ll be coming in over the suburbs. We’re going to have to abandon the plane and the estate. It’s been an expensive trip.’
Suddenly, the radio burst into life. ‘URGENT PRIORITY 1. REPEAT, PRIORITY 1. Calling Johnny Depp. Calling Johnny Depp. Please respond, over.’ Johnny’s face lit with joy, because only the Teacher knew how to contact this radio, and the voice was being disguised with an electronic device, just like the Teacher always did.
‘Yes!’ Johnny almost shouted. ‘Teacher, it’s me!’
‘Guess again,’ said the voice. There was a horrible silence. I got it before Johnny did.
‘Master?’ I said.
‘Oh hello, Miss Park. It is terrifically good to hear from you. I hope Mr Depp hasn’t caused you any harm?’ I said nothing.
Johnny Depp said, ‘How are you contacting us? How did you know how to…’
‘We really need not let that detain us, Mr Depp. Suffice to say, it has been no easy task. I am extremely pleased to have caught you before you land in London, and I really must insist that you turn away, right now.’ Through the voice-disguiser, there was something very urgent about the Master’s voice. If it weren’t so unexpected, I might almost have said he was desperate.
‘You’ve got to be joking.’
‘I am not a fool, Mr Depp, and I do not joke. I am not suggesting you return to my wicked clutches. All I am saying is that you must on no account land in London, which is where you are clearly heading.’
‘Why?’
‘I am afraid the reasons for that will soon become obvious. And when I say soon, I mean in fourteen minutes.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Very shortly, if things go according to my schedule, and they will, a French missile submarine stationed outside Jersey will pretend it has been attacked by a British destroyer, and its captain will launch on London. In fourteen minutes, the city will be swept from the face of the earth.’
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