Chapter 44: Masterful

Omigod. Johnny Depp’s eyes were heavy and glowing above my face, like two jewels I knew were cursed but which were so beautiful that my hand was drawn to them anyway. Omigod, omigod, omigod.

The Teacher told me not to have sex with Johnny Depp because it would be a disaster in ways I couldn’t imagine. And the Master was supposed to have some unstoppable way of making me forget myself and join his evil plans. And sex with Johnny Depp was so amazing that I was prepared to do it even though the Teacher, who was trying to save the world, told me not to. And no one knew who the Master was, because he was the cleverest of the demons, just like the Teacher, Miss Smallbone, was the cleverest of the angels. But if she was the cleverest of the angels, how could she risk this if she knew or even suspected that Johnny Depp was the Master? And if Johnny Depp was the Master, what did that make Rollo Price, who had turned up in Los Angeles when the Master was supposed to. What I can tell you is what all this made me: completely paranoid. Johnny said, ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ I said.

‘We shouldn’t do this,’ he said, and kissed me, and it felt as if every bone in my body went soft. The phone rang. ‘Leave it,’ he said. I left it. If he was the Master, then what harm did this do? I knew who he was, and so I was forewarned, and it was as if, basically, I was using him to gratify myself. I was completely using Johnny Depp. And then I would have this memory forever, and no one could take it away from me, and all of those things. And my bones were even softer, and it felt as if he was melting into me.

And then my answerphone kicked in, and the disguised voice of the Teacher said, ‘Stop it, Mary Sue! I can see what you’re doing. I told you not to, and I have very good reasons that I do not, at this moment, have time to explain, because I am trying to save the world. Suffice for the moment to say that your doorbell is going to ring at any moment, and you have work to do, and both of you need to get this hormonal nonsense out of your heads. Get off her, Johnny. I know you’re upset, and thinking about Vanessa, but she was a brave soldier, and you must be brave too.’

The phone clicked, and the doorbell rang. Johnny said, ‘I wasn’t think about Vanessa,’ and he kissed me again, very gently, and my arms tightened around him, but he smiled ruefully and pushed himself up to the full length of his arms. Then he winked, and hopped up, and pulled me after him. I went to the door, smoothing my hair. I was so discombobulated that I hadn’t properly considered who might be waiting – I took it on trust that it would be someone good, since the Teacher hadn’t given me any specific warnings – so when I opened it and there stood Rollo Price, it felt like I had been punched in the stomach.

‘Mary Sue?’ he said, stepping towards me, as I instinctively moved away. ‘Are you ok? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost?’ Press cameras clittered in the background. I forgot to mention the cameras earlier. Since I had been photographed with David Tennant, Matt Damon, Victoria Beckham and the Depps, and then sort-of-disappeared while I was at the centre of a series of international crime investigations involving top celebrities, I had become a sort of celebrity myself, and there were paparazzi camped outside my door when I got back, but Johnny Depp whisked me in past them as if it was all in a day’s work, which for him it was. But now they were taking pictures of me and Rollo, and behind Rollo was Sir Connaught Sampson-Samson, my head of chambers.

‘Fun, isn’t it?’ said Sir Conn. ‘But still, maybe better inside?’ Sir Conn was an angel, and I definitely trusted him. But Rollo? Sir Conn saw me looking at him sceptically, and he said, ‘It’s ok, Mary Sue. I’m here.’ So we went in.

Because I have never said anything else to anyone visiting my flat ever, I asked if they wanted tea, and they said yes, so we all stood in the not very large kitchen while the kettle boiled. Johnny hovered protectively, which I liked, which made me nearly as terrified, deep down in my soul, as the fact that Rollo looked as if he was about to leap on Johnny and pull his head off. Sir Conn acted as if he were oblivious to all this, but if there was one thing I had learned about Sir Connaught Sampson-Samson it was that he was oblivious to nothing, ever. A couple of times, I caught his eyes flashing from beneath their hooded lids, gauging the situation, calculating the points of particular stress. Eventually, I could hold off no more, and I said, ‘So, Rollo, plain clothes today. Are you on holiday? Have you been anywhere nice?’ A pause while he gauged what I knew and conjured up some inoffensive lie, but before he could tell it, I said, ‘What are you up to, Rollo?’

‘I might ask you the same question.’

‘I might answer it, if you arrest me. But you’re in my house now.’

‘I’ve been looking for you. You’re a witness in a murder investigation. I know you, so I was the obvious person to send to LA to ask you to come back.’

‘So you could pretend to be my friend?’ He looked blank, so I added, ‘I heard you tell your partner that that’s what you were doing.’

‘Is that why you’re angry? I told her that because it’s best not to let on to your fellow policemen that a witness is your mate. Saying that was what kept me on the case. So I could protect you.’

‘What happened in LA?’

‘Nothing. We heard you were in Harrison Ford’s mansion. We arrived…’

‘Who’s “we”?’

‘Me and Detective Landseer, LAPD. But as soon as we arrived, there was a massive fuss, and some shooting.’ Oh. That had been me, escaping. ‘I wanted to go in, but we were blocked off and told to wait. Landseer said we were leaving. A couple of bodyguards told us we had to stay. Then Landseer called for back-up, and then Harrison Ford arrived, heard what was happening, and told his bodyguards that they couldn’t afford any trouble, and that we would have to go. Harrison Ford looked at me as if he knew who I was. It was freaky. What have you got yourself mixed up in, Mary Sue?’ If he was lying, he was a brilliant actor. But then, if he was the Master, then he WOULD be a brilliant actor. I still didn’t know who to trust.

‘Entertaining as all this is,’ said Sir Conn, ‘your client is going before a judge tomorrow, and he really needs to see you.’ In all the furore, I had (almost) forgotten about David Tennant.