The Woman Who Died a Lot

“I change my mind and grow to love him, apparently,” said Gavin, “and I guess I must have had somewhere to hang it . . . moron.”

“Okay, okay,” said Jimmy-G soothingly, “this won’t happen, and what’s more, it won’t happen twenty-four years from now. Go on, Gavin.”

“Right. Well, I was caught—we all were, of course—and spent two years in an enloopment facility before being released due to a technicality. Not a great career, but better than what I get now. Friday Next will murder me in three days’ time!”

There was a sharp intake of breath as he said it, and he glared at Friday.

“Why are you going to kill me, Friday? Because I insulted your mum and sister?”

Friday took a deep breath and stood up to face Gavin.

“I don’t know. I have no real motive. But you can stop me. Take a random Tube ride. You can be anywhere on the planet in under six hours. If I can’t find you, it won’t happen.”

“As soon as my destiny papers arrived, my parents put me on the Deep Drop to Sydney,” said Gavin. “I checked in under a false name to a crappy motel near Dame Edna International. I even hid in the cupboard. My summarization papers hadn’t changed—you were still due to kill me. So I came home. If I was going to be murdered, I’d rather it happened near family and friends.”

“Friends?” said Shazza.

“Family then. Body repatriations are pricey these days, and they always seem to go astray.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” said Friday.

“You will,” said Gavin, “and what’s more I know for a fact you won’t get away with it.”

“It’s Tuesday night,” returned Friday, “and I’ve got sixty-six hours to figure out a way to bend the eventline.”

“Maybe the eventline did bend,” said Shazza thoughtfully. “It’s possible that once you were in the hotel cupboard, your Letter of Destiny changed to say you survived. You probably then wondered why you had flown all that way to hide in a cupboard, but as soon as you returned, so did your death.”

Everyone fell silent at this. Shazza was right. It was entirely possible that the eventline was vibrating like a rubber band and that what was written on the Letters of Destiny right now was not what had been on them even ten seconds ago.

“Okay, then,” said Friday, “I need to find a way of permanently changing our destinies. Right now things don’t look very good.”

There was silence after this, and Jimmy-G thought it a good time to call the meeting to an end and to meet again the same place next week, unless the smiting went ahead, in which case he’d let everyone know. The small party dispersed without much talk; the proceedings had been pretty joyless. Gavin glared at us both as he filed out, and as Jimmy-G walked up to speak to us, I noted Mr. Chowdry pulling his cell phone out of his pocket as he turned to leave.

“That was seriously strange,” said Friday as we walked back to the car. Shazza was with us, as she and Friday were going to have a drink together to see if any of their future spark could be preignited, and Jimmy-G was with us because his car was parked next to ours.

“Time-travel stuff generally is.”

“No,” said Friday, “I mean murderously seriously strange.”

“In what way?”

“Didn’t you notice?” he asked, and when I said I didn’t, he counted out the people at the group on his fingers. “Only three of us die seemingly natural deaths. I’m murdered in 2041, as are Shazza and Bendix, Miranda, Joddy and Sarah. The other six die in ‘unexplained’ deaths, all of them in 2040. Can you see a pattern?”

“None of us live beyond February 2041,” said Shazza in a quiet voice.

“Right,” said Friday. “I’m the last to die—three days before HR-6984 is scheduled to strike the earth. No one lives long enough to be killed by the meteorite that’s hurtling our way.”

“Does that mean the HR-6984 will definitely happen?” asked Shazza.

“It means we can’t prove it won’t,” said Friday, “since none of us live beyond it.”

“Why would anyone want to murder someone just before everyone is about to die anyway?” asked Jimmy-G. “It raises vindictiveness to a whole new level.”

They all looked at one another in a confused and dejected manner. It must be like having an itch and not being able to scratch it. Nevertheless, I thought I should be a mother rather than a colleague, so I said the first thing that came into my head. “Fish and chips, anyone?”

21. Wednesday: Library