London Spy: The Complete Scripts
Page 20
EXT. LONDON. THAMES RIVERBANK. DAWN (PAST)
River shoreline. Centre of London. Beside the Oxo Tower.
Danny, dressed as he was on the heath, sits on the sand in front of a gentle ebb of water. He hasn’t slept.
He takes off his shoes. He’s walked all night. He puts aside the trainers, an emblem of youth.
A bleak dawn.
He stands, edging into the freezing Thames. The murky water washes over Danny’s feet.
We hear music from the church, not a hymn, something Scottie would have loved --
INT. CHURCH. DAY (PRESENT)
Danny seated with Sara, Pavel & Claire.
Continuing from the previous scene we see the musician at the front of the church, playing the piece of music.
Which continues into --
EXT. HAMPSTEAD HEATH. WILDERNESS. DAWN (PAST)
Background: a blur of police activity in the trees.
Foreground: on the grass, the delicate suicide note, ripped into ragged, angry fragments. Discarded by Danny.
The music from the church plays over this.
The shards flutter in the wind, into the cold grey sky, dispersing across the heath.
And the music stops.
PAST/PRESENT SEQUENCE ENDS
INT. CHURCH. RECEPTION. DAY (PRESENT)
A buffet spread. Far too much food for the number of guests. Most of it untouched.
Claire talks to Pavel and Sara.
The civil servants huddle as a group.
The barman talks to the elderly ladies. Danny is with them but removed, his thoughts elsewhere.
INT. CHURCH. RECEPTION. DAY
Reception over. Danny alone with Claire. He surveys the leftover food. Untouched remnants. Dips discolouring.
Professor Marcus Shaw enters. Dressed formally. In black.
Claire and Danny are both surprised to see him. He approaches. Claire guesses his intentions.
CLAIRE
Marcus, this isn’t the time --
MARCUS
Yes it is, Claire. It’s exactly the right time.
Marcus turns to Danny, addressing him, but addressing the room in general, careful with diction and volume.
MARCUS (CONT’D)
I’ve destroyed my copy of Alex’s research.
(beat)
You should destroy yours.
Marcus speaks as though he believes the room is bugged. And that whoever was behind Scottie’s death is listening.
MARCUS (CONT’D)
You asked for my advice. There it is. You can take it. Or not.
And then, again, for emphasis and clarity.
MARCUS (CONT’D)
But I won’t help you --
CLAIRE
(interrupting)
That’s enough.
Silence.
Danny and Marcus stand opposite each other - as opposites. One a realist. One an idealist.
Marcus turns and walks away.
Danny has to say something, to try and change the Professor’s mind. He cannot let him walk out the room.
But Danny says nothing.
Marcus at the door, hesitates. He looks back.
MARCUS
It was... a nice idea.
With that, he leaves. The door shuts.
When Danny looks back he sees that Claire is inscrutable.
INT. DANNY’S APARTMENT. BEDROOM. DAY
Alone, Danny sitting on the floor, in the corner of the bedroom. The room stripped bare.
He runs his hand along the coarse carpet. Fine flecks of dust rise up: all that remains.
Danny pulls back the corner of the carpet, exposing the floorboards. Underneath a loose board is an album.
Instead of photos it contains press cuttings concerning Alex’s death. Meticulously clipped and saved.
Each of the articles is annotated with red ink. Sentences underlined. With the repeating line of commentary:
“This is a lie”
Page after page. The same commentary.
INT. DANNY’S APARTMENT. HALLWAY. DAY
Album under his arm, Danny walks through, contemplating an era over. He examines damage from a raucous party.
INT. DANNY’S APARTMENT. BATHROOM. DAY
Danny at the window, looking out --
EXT. DANNY’S APARTMENT BUILDING. COURTYARD. DAY
The surveillance apartment, also empty. Shutters open.
EXT. DANNY’S APARTMENT BUILDING. COURTYARD. DAY
Danny in the courtyard, standing at the window to the empty surveillance apartment, peering in.
There’s a gap under the window. Emboldened, Danny pries his fingers under the frame and lifts it up.
INT. SURVEILLANCE APARTMENT. LIVING ROOM. DAY
Danny nimbly climbs inside, discovering --
Imprint lines on the carpet where heavy equipment had once been placed. Not ordinary furniture. Strange shapes.
INT. SURVEILLANCE APARTMENT. BEDROOM. DAY
Paint scarred by tape. A collage once covered this wall. Danny peels off a remaining strip of masking tape. It coils lifelessly in his hand. A trace of text underneath.
A knock on the window. Danny’s startled. Sara is outside, in the courtyard, beckoning him to get out.
EXT. DANNY’S APARTMENT BUILDING. DAY
Danny, Pavel, Sara on the street. Scottie’s car parked nearby, loaded with a few of Danny’s belongings.
Pavel and Danny hug. Sara doesn’t wait her turn, joining them. Tender & sad. The only one crying should be Pavel.
PAVEL
Sorry... Goodbyes...
DANNY
I’ll see you all the time!
SARA
You better believe it.
But they don’t believe it, sensing their time as intense friends is over. As they separate, Sara whispers:
SARA (CONT’D)
Be careful.
INT/EXT. SCOTTIE’S CAR / SCOTTIE’S HOUSE. DAY
Danny parks Scottie’s car, now his car, in the drive.
And sits there.
EXT. SCOTTIE’S HOUSE. DAY
Danny, holding a box of belongings, before the house.
And stands there.
INT. SCOTTIE’S HOUSE. HALLWAY. DAY
Danny regarding the boxes, the album, the bin bag of clothes - out of place in Scottie’s immaculate home.
INT. SCOTTIE’S HOUSE. LIVING ROOM. DAY
Danny exploring the bookshelves. He picks out books that catch his eye, flicking through.
Danny is about to put the last book back when he notices in the space behind where this book was kept --
A glass jam jar. Danny reaches in, takes it out.
Holding it to the light, we see, inside the jar, a large flake of mania-blue-paint-work from Raphael’s blue room.
Blue and blue alone. Preserved in this wax sealed jam jar. Danny on the verge of crying.
EXT. SCOTTIE’S GARDEN. EVENING
Wrapped up, Danny sits in the corner of Scottie’s barren winter garden regarding this house.
He toys with the cylinder, tied around his neck on a piece of string like a gap year student travel trinket.
INT. SCOTTIE’S HOUSE. STUDY. NIGHT
Danny at the computer. He loads Alex’s research. A stream of baffling numbers.
Danny presses ‘Print’.
INT. SCOTTIE’S HOUSE. STUDY. NIGHT
The printer spewing out the research. Danny collates the pages, binding the research.
INT. SCOTTIE’S HOUSE. STUDY. DAWN
Danny has produced fifty or so manuscripts. They’re stacked. Addressed. Neat & careful work.
EXT. POST BOX. HAMPSTEAD. DAY
Danny sending several manuscripts abroad to international newspapers. NY Times, La Monde, etc.
EXT. SECOND POST BOX. LONDON. DAY
Danny in the centre of town, posting manuscripts.
EXT. THIRD POST BOX. LONDON. DAY
Contrasting location. Danny takes the last manuscripts from the boot of Scottie’s car. He p
osts them.
All gone.
EXT. THAMES RIVERSIDE. DAY
Danny sits at the bench where he once waited for Alex.
Detective Taylor arrives, alone, holding her copy of the manuscript that Danny produced.
She assesses the location - the MI6 building, the river pathway - before sitting down.
DETECTIVE TAYLOR
This is where you two met.
Not a question. She seems in no particular rush. A melancholy energy about the scene.
She glances through the manuscript. Danny is hopeful. But she hands the document to Danny. He’s confused.
DETECTIVE TAYLOR (CONT’D)
Look closely.
As Danny studies the pages, Detective Taylor observes him with the nearest to tenderness we’ve seen.
Close on the pages: a series of random equations cut and pasted together. Every six pages the mass of numbers repeat. A worthless document.
DANNY
This isn’t what I gave you.
DETECTIVE TAYLOR
But this is what I have.
Danny about to suggest some plan but she speaks first.
DETECTIVE TAYLOR (CONT’D)
I visited the nurse who took your blood sample.
For the first time she allows Danny a glimmer of her character, wry, thoughtful and practical.
DETECTIVE TAYLOR (CONT’D)
I was curious. Because it’s not procedure. So I asked a straightforward question. “Why did you do it?” And it’s not what he said. This man was afraid.
(beat)
Afterwards, I’d barely walked out the door and my phone rang. It’s my superiors demanding to know why I’m interrogating him. And you know what I said? “No reason”. It wasn’t much. But it’s as far as I’m prepared to go.
Danny understands. She believes. She just won’t help.
DETECTIVE TAYLOR (CONT’D)
Fifteen years a detective. All the cases I’ve solved... When accounts are written about the death of this spy, I’m going to end up as the simple minded copper.
We should love her, in this moment, as she understands her entire career will be defined by this case.
INT. UCL. CLAIRE’S OFFICE. DAY
In an impressive office Danny sits in front of Claire. On her table is a manuscript. She flicks through. Closes it.
Says nothing.
Danny reaches over, takes it, examining it - the pages doctored as Detective Taylor’s manuscript had been.
The numbers repeat every six pages.
DANNY
I’ll get you another one.
CLAIRE
With Scottie we had a chance. Without him we don’t.
Danny stops examining the pages. He looks at Claire.
DANNY
(gentle)
I don’t accept that. We knew him better than anyone. What would he have done?
And now a glimpse of why she’s head of UCL.
CLAIRE
You’re confused, Danny. Between trying to prove how much you love him. And trying to prove a conspiracy. You’re confused. And I wonder if you haven’t always been.
DANNY
What’s that mean?
CLAIRE
Scottie was sentimental about you.
And she’s not.
CLAIRE (CONT’D)
You’re doing this for him. He was doing this for you.
A moment of softness.
CLAIRE (CONT’D)
Maybe I was doing it for him.
Tough again.
CLAIRE (CONT’D)
But it’s not real, Danny. It won’t work. Whatever you do. Whatever you try.
(emphatic)
It wont work.
Nudging the manuscript aside, she opens her drawer, retrieving an envelope of her own.
It’s been sent to her, stamped, addressed, etc. She places it in front of Danny.
CLAIRE (CONT’D)
He sent it to me.
Inside is Danny’s notebook from the factory. His teenage jottings. Sketches. Poems. Lyrics. Etc.
Danny had no idea Scottie had even taken it from the abandoned factory. He holds it, emotional.
Claire stands.
CLAIRE (CONT’D)
Walk with me.
INT. UCL. LIBRARY. DAY
Through the entrance, bustling with students, the energy of hopes and ambitions, towards --
The central chamber with many levels, a cathedral to education and knowledge. Danny and Claire stand together.
Not a fusty library: modern with glass and sunlight.
The sound of pages turning. Books being moved. The scratch of pens. Surreptitious student whispers.
She allows the location to do all the work.
Danny remains guarded. Claire sad at his mistrust.
CLAIRE
I’ll be here, when you’re ready.
She turns and leaves.
Danny lingers, listening to the enticing library noises --
INT. SCOTTIE’S HOUSE. GUEST BEDROOM. NIGHT
A disturbing noise --
Danny sits up in bed. The middle of the night.
INT. SCOTTIE’S HOUSE. STARIWAY. NIGHT
Danny descends the stairs, investigating, from room to room, unable to find anything amiss.
The noise again. Coming from outside.
INT. SCOTTIE’S HOUSE. HALLWAY. NIGHT
Danny unlocks the front door. He opens it --
EXT. SCOTTIE’S HOUSE. NIGHT
Danny steps out, peering at the deserted street, before noticing that the garage door is slightly raised.
Uneasy, he moves towards the garage, lifting up the door. The hinge isn’t oiled and screeches - the noise we heard.
INT. SCOTTIE’S GARAGE. NIGHT
Danny turns on the lights, they hum and flicker, revealing no one.
The garage is full of Scottie’s curious odds and ends.
And a box marked fragile: newly deposited, taped up, sitting in the middle of the space.
Danny crouches, nervous, breaking the seal, opening it. He stares into it, troubled.
We still haven’t seen what the box contains.
INT. SCOTTIE’S HOUSE. STUDY. NIGHT
The box carried inside, by the desk. Danny tips the contents onto the floor. Out of it spill --
The envelopes he delivered. His handwriting. The stamps. Post marks. All collected. And returned. All fifty.
He rips one open. A neatly bound manuscript. Except all the pages are blank. The research is gone.
He opens another, and another, and --
INT. SCOTTIE’S HOUSE. STUDY. NIGHT
The fifty blank manuscripts on the floor around Danny.
Refusing to give up, he’s at the computer. The cylinder is in the drive. On screen is Alex’s research.
Danny attaches it to an e-mail.
INT. SCOTTIE’S HOUSE. STUDY. DAY
Bleary eyed, Danny at the computer. His ‘sent box’ shows the hundreds of documents he’s mailed overnight.
His inbox shows no replies.
Danny hears the sound of a car in the drive.
He stands, walking to the window --
EXT. SCOTTIE’S HOUSE. DAY
A bashed up car parked in the drive.
A woman, in her fifties, is helping a man in his seventies, towards the front door.
They move slowly. The man appears infirm.
INT/EXT. SCOTTIE’S HOUSE. FRONT DOOR. DAY
The doorbell rings.
Danny lingers, near the stairs, refusing to answer.
The doorbell rings again.
Danny again, doesn’t move. But he’s tormented.
The doorbell rings a third time.
Unable to stop himself, Danny opens the door.
A couple stand before him.
The man, in his seventies, has part of his throat missing. He breathes through a plastic tube affixed to where his larynx once was. A sad, soft wheezing sound.
The woman, in her fifties, has beauty bu
t no warmth. Both rough edged. Both smartly attired in inexpensive clothes.
Danny displays hostile unease.
INT. SCOTTIE’S HOUSE. KITCHEN. DAY
The three sit at the table. The awkward silence is punctuated with the slow-sad rhythm of the man’s wheeze.
Danny refuses to make polite chit chat. No tea, no coffee, no hospitality of any kind.
The atmosphere is excruciating.
The woman is about to make an observation, regarding the lovely kitchen, or whatever, when Danny cuts her off.
DANNY
How did you find me?
Danny studies their reaction carefully.
WOMAN
You gave us this address.
The woman takes out her address book, offering it to Danny. He views it, as he views them, with suspicion.
Danny glances inside the book: he finds his name and Scottie’s address. Crinkled and faded.
Wary of its apparent plausibility, he returns it.
DANNY
Eleven years.
WOMAN
(weakly)
A long time.
DANNY
And now?
MUM
Dan, your Dad’s dying.
These are his parents.
Danny’s instinct is sympathy. He guards against it, looking at his dad’s sick-yellow-tinged eyes. A body wracked by anger, booze and cigarettes.
MUM (CONT’D)
We weren’t much as parents.
Danny realizes he’s being sucked into an exchange he doesn’t even believe to be real. He pulls back.
DANNY
You read about me in the paper?
MUM
We read about you.
DANNY
But that’s not why you’re here?
She doesn’t seem to understand. And is about to answer --
When his dad’s breathing interrupts. Danny’s mother needs to clean the pipe. Phlegm. And mucus. It’s graphic.
Danny can’t decide - could this be real?
DANNY (CONT’D)
You need money?
MUM
No.
DANNY
No?
MUM