Wednesday, 19 February 2020

Once Upon a Time in Great Britain: Part 13

A door slams.

TONY’S VOICE
Fuck fuck fuck…

DAVE’S VOICE
Lock it.

TONY’S VOICE
Right, I’m not fucking joking. Never again. NEVER again. No more coke.

FADE UP

INT. TOM'S BEDROOM IN THE APARTMENT-DAY

TOM had gone back to bed, and he isn’t impressed with being woken up again. DAVE and TONY are in the corridor.

TOM (V/O)
If I weren’t so tired I’d have gone out there and beaten the shit out of both of them. But I suppose that’s a catch twenty-two situation. If I hadn't have got into this shit in the first place I could get a good night's sleep.

DAVE’S VOICE
What have we got…

Kitchen drawers rattle, he’s rifling through them, pulling metal things out.

Tom gets out of bed wearing the bulletproof jacket and sticks on a dressing gown. Nothing will make him take that jacket off.

TONY
Tom! Man of the moment! Listen, you’ve gotta do a huge favour for me.

TOM (Facetious)
Have I?

TONY
You bought a gun, didn’t you?

TOM
Everyone seems to know this.

TONY
Get it. Load it.

FLASHBACK
Tom is firing at the security services outside the sensor’s office.

CUT TO FLASHBACK
He’s sat in the car afterwards. No gun.

TOM
I lost it. (Pause) What have you done?

DAVE
This clown…

(Points at Tony, who’s stressing out)

DAVE (Cont)
Only did a couple of lines. Then told a load of customers at the bar all sorts of shit.

TOM
What?!

TONY
Not about you, or the bombs. Just about Yanyan and Devant. And us.

TOM (Sarcastic)
Oh, just that? Well…

Tom mock-wipes his brow.

TOM (cont)
They’ll never find me now, will they? Fuck me… Wait a minute. What about Yanyan?

Tony looks over at Dave. Dave nods.

TONY
She’s dead, Tom.

Tom contemplates this. Tries to act like it doesn’t bother him.

TOM
I’m fucking sick of your secrets, Dave. I move out today.

DAVE
She was leaving business cards all over the place.

FLASHBACK
The card Tom found in Bar Code.

DAVE (Cont.)
She was seeking attention. There are certain people in that bar that you do NOT want to get on the wrong side of. And if those people had found out I’m head of a national piracy network, she’d have been deported, and I’d have gone to jail for all that shit.

Dave points at the cupboard holding all the copying hardware.

TOM
You’re not the head of a 'national piracy network,' you pretentious cunt. You’re a Del Boy.

DAVE
There was a job you didn’t do, Tom. The mail services are losing thousands of letters a year. Devant wanted us to sort them out. We did that when you were asleep.

FLASHBACK
The smoke Tom saw when he was handing out the packages.

DAVE (Cont.)
Not that many people died, so it hasn’t had much news coverage. We didn’t find out we had to do it ‘til we’d already had about four lines of coke. You were out cold.

Dave looks over at Tony.

DAVE (cont)
And now thanks to NUMPTY over here, everyone in Code knows it was us.

The landline rings. Tony picks up.

TONY
Yes. No, don't let them in. I'm serious. Do not let them-

There's a SCREAM from down the phone.


TONY
My brain's going into meltdown, man.

BANG BANG BANG.

There’s someone at the door. They’re not very polite.

CU-TOM

FLASHBACKS

Quick frames of the police all over Manchester.

DAVE
Out the window. Come on.

TOM
What?!

Dave is already opening a window near the kitchen area.

TOM
We’re on the fourth floor, you knobhead!

DAVE
Shh!

BANG BANG BANG.

They’re not just knocking. They’re knocking it through. Dave roots through the kitchen drawers, shaking. We’ve never seen him nervous before.

TONY
There’s no way that’s the police.

DAVE
Fuck. Somebody at Bar Code shopped us.

TONY
That dickhead manager probably.

DAVE
Tony!

DAVE rugby-throws a large kitchen knife at Tony, cutting his arm.

TONY
Argh! You fucking prick!

DAVE pulls an even bigger one out of the drawer.

BAM! The door is put through. Four men charge into the room. They wear full black including balaclavas. One has a MiniDV camera. Two have crowbars. The cameraman wears a T-shirt saying GUNCHESTER. We’ve met him before.

Moments after the men walk in, CALLUM enters, sporting a different Benneton jumper. Tom’s face slips from fear to despair when he recognises him.

Tony picks up the knife and freezes.

Dave steps forward, yelling, knife raised. Balaclava 1 tries to turn away, and Dave sinks the knife into his shoulder. Balaclava 1 screams. Dave is not backing down.

Dave and Balaclava1 are shoved aside by the other intruders. 2 of them grab Tom by an arm each. Tom’s really mad. He’s pushing them together like he’s on the pec deck. They struggle, but manage to trip him and hold him down. He has to watch.

A crowbar lands in Dave’s face. Blood goes all over the kitchen work surface and pristine utensils. He’s not handsome any more. As he’s knocked away he holds onto the knife, which rips a large fissure in Balaclava 1’s shoulder, but stays embedded.

Tony has backed into a corner when the blows start raining down on his face and body.

Tom, eyes scrunched closed, starts to open them and watch the scene unfold. He’s becoming accustomed to violence and death. The despair he felt when the bombs went off is a distant memory.

But during this, Tom can hear footsteps. He turns to look away from the carnage. He glances to the broken door where these men came in.

SLOW MOTION

Executive shoes and black suit trousers are stepping forward.

TOM’S FACE:

Oh no.

CU TONY AND DAVE

They're almost dead, covered in blood, which is also splattered all over the flat. The blows keep raining down on them as the cameraman films. Dave and Tony become victims of the kind of material they peddled.

Executive shoes and trousers walk closer.

The balaclava-wearing men and Callum, all now drenched in blood, give Dave and Tony one last whack on the head. They’re dead.

And in walks Devant, the same black suit and meaning business. He stands over Tom in this scene of carnage without a speck of blood on him, technically. But Devant, we now know, is the guiltiest man in the room. He glances at Callum, straight-faced.

No comments: