Read by Nicholas Delvallé
A grainy scene.
CCTV, it could be. Is. The tell-tale time in the corner: 11.17 pm.
A woman crosses the screen, moves down a deserted alleyway. It is late and she is alone.
We switch to stalker point of view. The woman’s heels clip along the road, slow… halt. She half turns – is it possible that someone is following her?
She starts to walk again. Faster now.
In stalker view we advance on her quietly, quickly. At the last she turns, startles, screams. She tries to run, but we have her now. We stifle her cries and kill her in a way that is almost certainly sexually motivated.
* * *
‘Trutch!’
Trutch stirs. He is sitting at his desk but has been miles away, thinking about *the past*. We’re not yet sure what his past is but there’s no question he has plenty of it and thinking about it makes him sad.
‘Trutch!’
The voice is that of his boss, DCI Beak, looking worried in her office. No one knows what Beak’s first name is, no one dares to ask. We don’t know much about her private life because she never, ever lets it get in the way of the job. But we do know that she has a husband who the team call ‘the icicle’ because DCI Beak is so cold that if you ever stuck your dick in her it would surely freeze.
We also know that Beak has no children, which could potentially become a thing but which is purely practical for the moment. The last thing we need is her having to knock off early to go to parents’ evening or whatever.
‘Trutch! Get in here now. You gotta see this.’
Trutch’s first name, we will eventually learn, is Leon. But only his wife calls him that. Called him that… Trutch shakes his head softly. He draws a hand down his tired, handsome, stubbled face as he stands and heads towards Beak’s office. Plainly his wife is part of *the past*.
‘What have we got, Boss?’
Beak nods towards the monitor on her desk. She speaks in a non-specific, cockney accent which jars implausibly with those who remember her best as the cut-glass Lady Loveless in hit period drama, Loveless Manor. She would still be there were it not for a row over an executive producer credit that resulted in her being tragically trampled by a horse.
‘This has just come in. I warn you, it’s not pretty.’
Trutch bends over the screen. CCTV footage shows a darkened alleyway where a hooded man is repeatedly thrusting a long knife into the abdomen of a pretty woman. She struggles ecstatically for a while but soon quiets and stills. A large dolphin motif is plainly visible on the back of the man’s hoodie.
Beak chews on a nail. ‘You think it’s him?’
Trutch nods. ‘Gotta be.’ He lifts his dark, mournful eyes to DCI Beak. ‘The dolphin killer is back.’
* * *
‘Wait, what?’ Max Harman’s eyes close in confusion. ‘The what?’
Greg South looks up from his script. ‘Um… “The dolphin killer”?’
‘Dolphin?’ Max Harman – creator and writer of Deep Suspect, Cold Justice, and now the break-out hit Trutch!, known in the industry as “Max the Ripper” for the sheer number of women he has been responsible for killing on screen – has been pacing the room. Now he frowns, lays a hand across his forehead. ‘Isn’t that a bit… friendly?’
‘We workshopped it last week.’ Greg is a long-time Harman collaborator, and the senior member of the writers’ room team that is seated around the table. ‘You know, they apparently kill sharks?’
Wendy Ray nods. ‘They rape other dolphins. They smother them by blocking up their blowholes.’
Dee’ann Rice looks at her neighbour, Roy. It is her first day as an intern.
‘Rape dolphins?’ she mouths.
Roy shrugs. He is a relative newcomer to the writers’ room too, but has already impressed with his freezer-killer storyline. No one saw that bolognese twist coming.
‘Too Flipper!’ Max strikes at his script with a pen. ‘Think darker, more dangerous.’
‘Manta ray?’ Wendy is eager to jump in. ‘Stingray!’
‘Too puppets! Stay out of the water, people. Think land.’
‘Scorpion?’ Tries Roy.
Max clicks his fingers above his head, points towards Roy. ‘Good! Great! A sting in the tail… The scorpion killer is back…’
* * *
Trutch is home. He untucks a gun from the small of his back and lays it down on the kitchen table, but he keeps his coat – that coat – on. The flat is grey and appallingly bare. Trutch turns on no lights as he moves towards the fridge.
A butter’s-eye view of his uplit face, the buzz of the fridge’s insides loud in our ears. Trutch sighs, closes the fridge door again. He hasn’t knowingly done any shopping since season one. And anyway, food doesn’t interest him since *the past*.
He takes a glass from the counter and fills it with water from the tap. Drains it, fills it again and turns to contemplate the kitchen wall. Photos of victims, torn scraps from the newspapers. Post its and pins tied together with wool. And a photo of Trutch, smiling, with his wife.
If only he could have saved her…
His mobile begins to shudder in his pocket. He takes it out and checks the display: Beak.
‘Tell me.’ Trutch’s voice is hoarse, cracked, almost a whisper. He doesn’t say hello. There’s no time. Not when The Scorpion Killer is out there planning his next attack.
‘What do we know about the victim?’ Beak is looking haggard on a sofa, clinging to a large glass of wine. There are three of them in this marriage: Beak, Beak’s husband and the job. Somewhere in the background the icicle is cooking or emptying the dishwasher. Something domestic.
Trutch closes his eyes, sighs softly down his nose. ‘Gemma Meadows. Twenty three. Single, popular, attractive. Attacked on her way home from work.’
‘What did she do?’
‘Training as a lawyer. A real high flier…’
* * *
‘A lawyer?’ This time it is Dee’ann’s voice that cuts through the room. The words slip out before she can help it.
Max turns to fix her with his gaze. ‘Yes, Dee’ann?’
She colours, begins to fluster. ‘Sorry. It’s just… if she was on her way home from work, why was she dressed like a sex worker?’
Max’s expression puzzles. He looks around the table for assistance. The writers exchange glances or dip their eyes as the silence builds.
Roy clears his throat. ‘I think she means… What if she’s selling sex to pay her way through law school? Like they do, these days…’
‘Yes!’ Click. Point. ‘Great thought, Dee’ann. Aspiration! This girl was empowered…’
* * *
‘Trutch!’
Trutch and Beak are standing over a new victim. A barely dressed young woman in her early twenties, blonde or brunette. She has been brutally, savagely clubbed to death in what is almost certainly a sexually-motivated attack. Beak has been speaking but Trutch is miles away: If only he could have saved her…
Beak leans in to him urgently. ‘I’m worried about you, Trutch. Since the past you’ve got reckless. I don’t know if I can trust your methods.’
Trutch squats down to the body, tilts his head to one side to look it gratuitously up and down. ‘Don’t think about my methods.’ He narrows his eyes, allows their focus to drift out into the distance. ‘Think about my results.’
He stands again, calls back over his shoulder to a group of police extras. ‘CCTV?’
One of them steps forward, hands him a series of stills which he takes and flicks through blankly.
‘You think it’s him?’ Beak chews on a nail.
Trutch nods, his dark, mournful eyes fixed on the images in front of him. ‘Gotta be.’
‘But it doesn’t make sense… This one was beaten to death sexually. All the others were sexually stabbed. It’s a totally different M.O.’
‘Exactly.’ Trutch fixes Beak with a grim stare, his voice growing even more guttural. ‘He’s changed the pattern. That’s how we know it’s him.’
He hands her the photos and taps the top one. It’s a grainy image, but there is no mistaking the large scorpion motif on the back of the murderer’s hoodie.
‘Who found the body?’ Trutch calls to the extras again. One of them responds, it doesn’t matter which, ushering a young woman forwards.
She is young, in her twenties. Pretty. Brunette or possibly blonde. Trutch studies her carefully, doing the calculations. They are in the opening scene of the second part of a two-part special. He thinks he recognises this woman from Holby and possibly an advert for cat food or insurance. This is no ordinary extra. She must be connected to the deaths somehow. And that means her life is in danger.
* * *
‘The connection… What’s the connection, people?’ Max is pacing again, beating the script lightly against his thigh. ‘And why does she have to die?’
Wendy idles at her notepad with a pencil. ‘A sexual motivation?’
‘Good, good.’ Max doesn’t break stride. ‘Keep thinking.’
The room falls into contemplation. Dee’ann leans towards Roy, speaks in a whisper. ‘Why does she have to die?’
Roy nods.
‘No, I mean, Why does she have to die? Can’t she provide crucial information… Or be rescued at the last minute?’
Roy winces, indicates Max with his head. ‘It’s the rule: if a woman appears in the first scene, she has to be murdered sexually by the third.’
Dee’ann knits her brow. ‘Always?’
‘Well, as long as she’s attractive. Unless she’s a long-term love interest, maybe. Or some kind of criminal nemesis…’
‘What’s that?’ Max stops, scans the table, selects her with his stare. ‘Dee’ann?’
Dee’ann swallows, starts to stammer. ‘I… I was just saying… is it really necessary to kill her?’
‘O-kaay.’ Max smiles indulgently. ‘What are you thinking?’
‘Well.’ Dee’ann hesitates. ‘Maybe she can be a long-term love interest?’
Max is in listening mode now: chin down on his chest, nodding gently. He makes a spooling signal with his finger. ‘Go on.’
‘And, like, some kind of criminal nemesis?’
Max looks up. ‘You’re saying…’
Dee’ann looks to Roy. He steps in. ‘She’s saying, what if this woman is actually the killer? And maybe she’s not the scorpion killer, she’s a copycat. And it’s all about a grudge against the lawyer?’
Max’s eyes brighten. Greg South nods carefully. Wendy Ray looks nonplussed. ‘What about the sexual motivation?’
All heads turn to Dee’ann. She thinks for a moment. ‘Lesbian?’
‘Yes.’ Click. Point. ‘Brilliant, Dee’ann.’
Dee’ann flushes with pride.
Max eyes her appraisingly. ‘We’ll make a writer of you yet…’.
* * *
‘Trutch, no!’
Beak’s eyes are wild as she arrives on scene. Trutch has the copycat killer cornered, pinned at gunpoint against the rooftop’s edge. Armed response extras pour into the periphery.
‘Leave it. She’s not worth it.’ Beak is worried about Trutch’s methods. She’s worried that his results will cost him his badge. Most of all she’s worried that her lines are becoming a bit Eastenders.
‘Do it, Leon...’ The killer’s voice lowers to a pornographic whisper – it actually says “pornographic” in the script. Her lips linger luxuriously on the words: ‘Finish me off.’
Trutch’s finger trembles on the trigger. His soft eyes fill with tears. It’s almost as if all of *the past* has been leading to this point. He has so much hurt and hate, darkness and desire. So many inconsistent motivations.
‘I thought we had something special… I thought you were different…’
The copycat killer is a lesbian, of course. But fortunately one of those lesbians who are sexually attracted to men who find lesbians sexually attractive.
‘…But you’re nothing but a soulless killer, like the rest.’
The killer’s mouth curls into a one-sided smile. ‘Just your type.’
As she says it she allows her body to tip back, fall away over the edge. Trutch leaps forward… but too late.
We glimpse her expression in freefall. She looks quietly confident. The audiences love her. Her agent has already begun negotiating the next series, and her days selling pet insurance are surely behind her. They’ll have to write her way out of this somehow.
Up on the rooftop, Trutch pounds a palm on the concrete with a guttural roar, spittle magnificently decorating his chin and lip – is there a finer spit actor on television today?
Because his face too carries a hint of self-congratulation. This season is in the can. The next is in the bag.
Fuck Wolf Hall. With Dee’ann on board, he could be just six strong sexually-motivated storylines from Bond.
(c) Dan Timms, 2016
Dan Timms (left) has an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia (UEA), where he won the Curtis Brown Prize for the year’s top student, the Malcolm Bradbury Memorial Scholarship, and was shortlisted for the David Higham Award.
Nicholas Delvallé trained at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Since leaving he’s toured Austria with Vienna’s English Theatre; performed in All’s Well that Ends Well and Anne Boleyn at Shakespeare’s Globe; played Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet by Theatre Sotto Voce, understudied in the National Theatre’s production of A Small Family Business & played Ferdinand/Antonio in The Tempest at the Southwark Playhouse.
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