Chapter 46: I'd Almost Forgotten About Her

I shouldn’t have been surprised to see my archenemy at David Tennant’s arraignment. The process took twenty minutes because of all the media fuss. I’d spent all morning answering police questions, including some from a tall LAPD detective called Landseer who’d flown to England to question me about the Vanessa Paradis/Ewan McGregor shootings. For some reason, blind panic, probably, I located within me a hitherto never-suspected zen-like focus. I needed every bit of it when I walked out of the courtroom into the flashlights, which I expected, and into Cathy Calloway, who I did not.
Cathy was dressed as the mourning wife in a mafia movie – black pill-box hat and a little veil, black suit with short skirt, patent leather stilettos, white face, mouth a red slash, nails like talons. ‘You murdered the love of my life!’ she hissed.

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘You killed him!’

‘That’s an extremely bold accusation to be making in public, Miss Calloway,’ I said.

‘You know what I mean, you dumpy bitch!’

‘I’m accused of nothing, and my client denies the charge.’

‘He killed Gavin, because you told him to.’

I raised my voice, ever so slightly, and said, ‘Gavin, the love of your life?’

‘Yes. Of course he was! You know…’

‘Gavin, my husband? My husband was the love of your life?’

‘Shut up! You know exactly what I am saying!’

She was saying was that the demon Gavin was her partner through the millennia, but of course she couldn’t say that to the press. I saw precisely what I had to say to wind her up. ‘You are saying you and my husband were the love of each other’s lives?’

‘Of course we were. Anyone could see it.’

‘I have to say, Miss Calloway, that if I were the police, I would look at the situation and think that this Gavin had clearly chosen one of these two women, and he’d done so in a very public way, with a ring, and given that one of the two women is now completely hysterical as a result, it seems that we should maybe be looking at how she reacted when she was scorned by this Gavin. Maybe she was so upset she wanted to kill him?’

‘You know that’s not true. You know why he married you!’

‘Yes, or I presume so. I presume he married me because he loved me. It can’t have been money, or status, since you have more of those things than I have. So it must have been because he loved me more than you. I’m sorry you can’t accept that.’

‘He chose me at the wedding!’

‘You seduced him when he was drunk, and we had a fight. Look, Cathy, none of this is decorous. I’m sure you didn’t kill him, and nor did I.’

‘David Tennant killed him, and you told him to!’

‘If you repeat what you just said, you will be in court for slander. Surely you shouldn’t be making an exhibition of all this. Cathy dear. It’s so vulgar.’ And I swept out. I’d never swept out of anywhere in my life before. I’d tried a few times, but I’d usually just knocked something over. Maybe being doomed really does make you cooler. Although, on the being doomed front, Cathy Calloway had given me the glimmering of an idea.
***

I told David Tennant my idea, and he liked it. I want to say, ‘I felt like a clever girl trying to impress her dad, and basking in the glow of his approval,’ but this was not what I felt like. I wanted to impress him, and was excited when he was impressed, but… Well. The thing about this is that I’ve never been a kinky person in any way. I’m not a kinky person, I don’t think.
***

Miss Smallbone was in my flat when I got home. How she got past the reporters was just one of the many mysteries. She must have been able to teleport, basically, though when I accused her of doing so, she denied it with a faint smile. ‘Do you have an idea, Mary Sue?’ I told her my idea, and her face fell.