by Alan Bennett
MARRYATT-SMITH
You’d never make a waitress.
INT. GARRARD’S, LOCKER ROOM – DAY
Chris and Ollie have the Michelangelo book open and are comparing the drawing with the illustration of the Sistine Chapel original.
CHRIS
What do you think?
OLLIE
I don’t know.
They are having their sandwiches.
Careful. It may not be a Michelangelo but it doesn’t want covering with Marmite.
A flake or two of the paper breaks off and Ollie carefully gathers up the fragments.
They can analyse paper. Tell the age.
CHRIS
You thought it was a fake.
OLLIE
So? I just want to prove it.
We see that in the Michelangelo book from Marryatt-Smith’s office the page has been marked with a slip of paper.
CHRIS
Did you mark the place?
OLLIE
No.
INT. GARRARD’S, JELLEY’S ROOM – DAY
Chris and Ollie knock lightly on the door and come nervously into the room. It is lined with bookcases and crowded out with books and catalogues, piles of folders containing drawings, books marked with references, or left open at the vital page. Invisible in the middle of this chaos is Jelley, a fat, untidy figure, possibly Jewish and on that account alone set apart from his colleagues.
But what also sets him apart is his love of and genuine appreciation of his speciality, Old Master Drawings.
Chris and Ollie venture nervously into this sanctum, avoiding the books on the floor, the remnants of takeaways etc. Jelley works on, oblivious of them.
CHRIS
Will you take a look at something for us?
OLLIE
‘Us’. Jesus.
JELLEY
What? Yes. In due course. Put it on the pile.
CHRIS
Now.
JELLEY
(continuing to work)
Can’t now. Got to do this catalogue. Should have been done weeks ago. Head on the block. Sack imminent. Name mud with the powers that be.
He measures a drawing. He alters proof.
Oh God.
CHRIS
It’s urgent. It belongs to my aunt. She’s not got long to live.
JELLEY
Scheduled to go this afternoon, is she?
CHRIS
Well …
JELLEY
Because I am. Unless I get this done today my scrotum is in the mangle. Put it down somewhere there’s a good chap. I will look at it, I promise.
OLLIE
We can’t. Please. We think it might be something.
JELLEY
Listen. Don’t get on that game. Undiscovered masterpieces. If you want to learn something about drawing I can teach you. I’ll answer any questions you’ve got. Because that’s interesting, that’s worthwhile. But treasures from the attic, no. Spare me.
He sees the disappointed look on Ollie’s face and relents.
Oh, what is it?
Jelley wearily puts his hand out for it and Chris begins to take the photograph out of the envelope when Cresswell comes in. Chris hurriedly puts it back.
CRESSWELL
God, this place stinks. What do you keep in here, rats?
JELLEY
Naff off, Nigel. I’m in conference. Show me.
CHRIS
Never mind. I’ll wait.
CRESSWELL
I’ve been told to give you a gee up. Apply the whip.
JELLEY
Let’s see, for Christ’s sake.
CHRIS
No, I’ll leave the photograph.
JELLEY
God.
CRESSWELL
Piss off the pair of you. The man’s busy.
Chris and Ollie leave.
With Chris and Ollie gone Cresswell stands over Jelley for a while watching him work on the proofs.
CRESSWELL
You know, Brian, you must be the last man in London to wear nylon shirts.
And indeed one is hanging up in a corner. Cresswell goes and settles down in a chair, feet up, prepared to wait until the proofs are finished. He lights a cigarette.
JELLEY
(more to himself than to Cresswell)
Turner is extraordinary.
He looks at a drawing.
Just extraordinary.
CRESSWELL
Do you know what your trouble is, Brian? You’re too interested in art.
He picks up the photograph.
What this?
JELLEY
God knows.
CRESSWELL
What is it?
JELLEY
I don’t know.
He takes it from Cresswell and looks at it for the first time.
CRESSWELL
Well?
JELLEY
Nothing, probably.
He puts it to one side, but as he works on at the proofs his eyes keep straying to the photograph. Cresswell maybe notes this.
INT. GARRARD’S, CONSERVATION LAB – DAY
Ollie gives the sample of paper to a lab assistant, a young man of his own age. In the background someone older and more senior who is unaware of the transaction.
EXT. SUBURBAN STREET, BECK’S HOUSE – DUSK
Chris padlocks his bike to a tree and then walks down the street to the house. He rings the bell, but the house is dark and there is no answer. He is about to ring the bell again when he realises the door is open. He pushes it and goes in.
INT. BECK’SHOUSE – DUSK
CHRIS
Hello? Hello?
He goes into the house along the corridor. He switches the light on. The place is in chaos, drawers ransacked, pictures askew. He switches the light off very quickly. He goes into the front room where he took the drawing, lights a match to find the drawer in which to put the drawing, takes it out of his bag and is about to put it back in the drawer when he stumbles over something. He lights a match. It is Beck’s body. He has been strangled. At which point the room is illuminated by car headlights and we hear the slam of an expensive car door. Then Chris hears the creak of the gate. Leaving the envelope with the drawing on the table Chris hides in a cupboard.
The Girl comes in.
She goes along the passage and switches on the light. Through a crack in the door Chris sees the light from the corridor lighting up the dead man’s face.
She runs upstairs and Chris is about to make his escape when she runs downstairs again and comes into the front room. She switches on the light and sees the dead man. She kneels down beside him, sees that he is dead. She says nothing, and it is hard to say if she is shocked or unmoved.
She phones the police and for an ambulance, Chris still marooned in the cupboard. Then she sits, waiting, smoking a cigarette.
In the distance the siren of a police car.
Suddenly she claps her hand to her mouth and runs into the kitchen. Chris hears her being sick.
He comes out of the cupboard and is about to make his getaway when he sees the envelope with the drawing. He snatches it up and rushes out of the house. He hides with his bike in a garden as the police car passes.
EXT. LONDON STREETS, SQUASH CLUB – NIGHT
Chris pelting along on his bike and arriving at the Squash Club.
INT. SQUASH CLUB – NIGHT
Horrocks, one of the partners, is already knocking up when Chris rushes in, still tying his shoes. Ollie is in the gallery.
HORROCKS
If this is a crude attempt to ‘psych me out’, Huggins, it won’t work. Ready?
CHRIS
Can’t I knock up?
HORROCKS
Sorry. I’ve got to get to The Magic Flute.
CHRIS
Is that a pub?
Horrocks is already playing so the joke loses Chris the point.
INT. THE SAME – HALF AN HOUR LATER
Chris is losing point after point. Ollie
in the gallery is in despair. Marryatt-Smith comes into the gallery with his opponent whom he has just beaten. He watches the game. In a break Horrocks glances up and sees him and draws his finger across his throat. Chris catches the gesture, looks up at the gallery and sees Marryatt-Smith, pulls himself together and wins the next point. And the next.
INT. SQUASH CLUB LOCKER ROOM – NIGHT
OLLIE
Dead?
CHRIS
The place had been burgled.
Horrocks passes them, dressed and in a bad temper.
HORROCKS
I wouldn’t care but now I’ve got to go and sit through fucking Mozart.
OLLIE
Well at least you took the drawing back. It’s got nothing to do with you.
Chris takes the envelope out of his bag.
Oh Chris.
INT. BECK’S HOUSE, FRONT ROOM – DAY
Police are taking fingerprints around the room, the position of the body marked on the floor, the proceedings supervised by Detective Sergeant Lightfoot, a big burly man, and Grisewood, a detective constable. (The outline of the body would be art, too, in other circumstances.)
INT. GERRARD’S, MARRYATT-SMITH’S ROOM – DAY
Marryatt-Smith is talking to Detective Sergeant Lightfoot, Detective Constable Grisewood is also present.
MARRYATT-SMITH
When you first walked in I thought, ‘Oh dear. It’s stolen goods,’ which we do endeavour not to sell … or at any rate, not until at least one hundred years have elapsed. But murder. Oh dear. Sherry?
LIGHTFOOT
No.
MARRYATT-SMITH
Your friend?
GRISEWOOD
Don’t mind if I do.
MARRYATT-SMITH
Mr Beck was well known at London auction houses. Sotheby’s and Christie’s … (pardon my French) would, I’m sure both tell you the same story. People like that haunt places like this. And I’m sure there are people there … and here … who could have murdered him several times over. We exist to sell. Mr Beck did not want to sell. He was a crank. A knowledgeable crank, but a crank nevertheless. You must have people who haunt the police station.
GRISEWOOD
Oh we do, don’t we, Sergeant? There’s one woman who …
LIGHTFOOT
Did you ever see his pictures?
MARRYATT-SMITH
I suppose I’ve seen them all in my time. His Poussin, his Dürer, his fourteen Rembrandts. I’ve seen his pictures and I’ve seen his pictures of his pictures …
LIGHTFOOT
All fakes?
MARRYATT-SMITH
Not fakes necessarily. They just weren’t what he thought they were.
GRISEWOOD
Mistaken identity.
MARRYATT-SMITH
Quite.
LIGHTFOOT
Would you have been prepared to sell them?
MARRYATT-SMITH
Gladly. But we would sell anything. We’d have sold Jesus if we’d had a branch in Jerusalem.
Grisewood laughs appreciatively. Lightfoot doesn’t.
GRISEWOOD
Actually my sister-in-law’s got an interesting picture. It’s of a man sitting on a seat with a dog, It’s an original in oils. I’ve always thought that it might be worth something.
LIGHTFOOT
Grisewood. Theft doesn’t seem to have been the motive. Nothing was actually taken.
MARRYATT-SMITH
That narrows it down. You’re looking for someone with good taste.
Again only Grisewood acknowledges the joke.
But if nothing was taken, what brings you here?
LIGHTFOOT
The murdered man was apparently visited by one of your employees the day before he was killed. A Mr Huggins.
MARRYATT-SMITH
Huggins? Really. Whatever for? What can he have wanted?
INT. POLICE STATION, INTERROGATION ROOM – DAY
CHRIS
A fuck, basically.
LIGHTFOOT
Just the one?
CHRIS
Well, with me, Sergeant, one generally leads to another. Don’t you find that?
LIGHTFOOT
(shouting)
Grisewood.
Grisewood rushes in.
Get this filth out of here.
Grisewood takes hold of Chris’s collar.
The ashtray, Grisewood. The ashtray.
Grisewood carries out the laden ashtray. Lightfoot prepares to take Chris’s fingerprints as Grisewood returns.
CHRIS
I do him a good turn and I land up having my fingerprints taken.
LIGHTFOOT
It was somebody he knew or why did he open the door? And he knew you. You’d been before. I think you went with the wallet, saw it was a bit of an Aladdin’s cave and with your limited knowledge of the art world thought you were on to a good thing. So you went back the next night to thieve, only he found you at it. I don’t think you meant to kill him. You don’t look the type. But that’s what happened, isn’t it?
CHRIS
No.
LIGHTFOOT
Was he a Jew?
CHRIS
Was he?
LIGHTFOOT
Refugee of some sort. They’re supposed to be smart. Not him. Pictures all fakes. So probably his passport is too. You’re not so smart either, wanting to pinch a load of rubbish like that.
CHRIS
I didn’t.
LIGHTFOOT
So you keep saying. I hope you’re noticing the prejudice incidentally. I get that off the TV. I’m encouraged to reveal my bigoted views to the prisoner while maintaining a liberal facade to the public at large.
CHRIS
I’m not a prisoner.
LIGHTFOOT
You soon will be if you don’t pull your socks up. We can keep you here all night of course, in the hope that sometime in the small hours you’ll break down and spill the beans and I could go home with a sense of satisfaction. That’s what happens on TV. The truth is the North London Police Choir is doing Pirates of Penzance this evening and I’m one of their solo tenors. TV policemen never do that, do they, have leisure activities? They have all the time in the world to question the suspect before going home to a ratty wife and the charred remains of their supper. You’re not going to run away, are you?
CHRIS
No. Only …
LIGHTFOOT
What?
CHRIS
I was thinking. Maybe if I came and listened to your singing that might make me confess. (Pause.) That was a joke.
Lightfoot leans over casually and slaps him very hard across the face.
I’ve seen that on TV.
LIGHTFOOT
Yes. I don’t know where they get it from. It never happens. Does it, Grisewood?
GRISEWOOD
What, Sergeant?
Lightfoot dismisses Grisewood, and shakes his head at Chris, meaning ‘He’s a real card’. Dismisses Chris who goes to the door.
INT. SQUASH CLUB, LOCKER ROOM – NIGHT
Chris taping the envelope containing the drawing to the underside of his locker shelf.
EXT. SUBURBAN STREET NEAR BECK’S HOUSE – NIGHT
Chris cycling towards Beck’s house, with Ollie, who waits outside.
A large car starts from outside Beck’s house as Chris rounds the corner. He cannot see who is inside but it is chauffeur-driven.
EXT. BECK’S HOUSE – NIGHT
Chris ringing the bell.
The Girl opens the door quickly and excitedly.
GIRL
… Oh, I thought you were someone else. Come in.
Chris follows her in and makes to go into the sitting room where he was before.
No. Not in there.
She takes him into the kitchen. Two glasses on the table, which she clears. The place, as before, is quite dimly lit.
I didn’t think it was you who did it.
Chris shrugs.
But I had
to tell them you’d been. The police. My name is Kristina.
CHRIS
What’s missing?
KRISTINA
Nothing.
CHRIS
(looking at the jumble and stacks of stuff)
How can you tell?
KRISTINA
There is one thing that has gone.
CHRIS
And did you tell the police?
KRISTINA
(shakes her head)
He was so rude. Kept asking if we were legal. How long are you here before you are legal?
She gets up to go next door and Chris, as if by accident, switches the light on. She switches the light off.
INT. BECK’S HOUSE, FRONT ROOM – NIGHT
Kristina shows Chris the empty packet which had contained the drawing.
KRISTINA
The photograph has gone too.
She shows him the album with the empty page that had contained the photograph.
CHRIS
He showed me the drawing.
KRISTINA
He showed everybody. He showed the milkman once. And everybody said, yes, yes how wonderful. Knowing he was crazy. I could see it in their faces.
CHRIS
Me.
She touches him.
KRISTINA
Somebody must have believed him.
CHRIS
Where did it come from, the drawing?
KRISTINA
He was a dealer. Dealers never say, do they? What did you think of it?
CHRIS
I’m a porter. I just carry the pictures from Point A to Point B.
KRISTINA
I don’t care anyway. He’s gone.
They are at the foot of the stairs. She goes up the stairs a little.
Could I see you without your clothes on?
CHRIS
Me? Sure.
He starts to go up the stairs.
Why not?
INT. BECK’S HOUSE, BEDROOM – NIGHT
Chris is taking his clothes off. She is looking at him.
KRISTINA
It is as I thought. You are beautiful.
She poses him.
Put your arms so. And your legs so. Good. That is good, Now lie down. Put your arms behind your head.
CHRIS
I know this. This is called ‘the Odalisque position’.
KRISTINA
Yes?
CHRIS
An old man at work told me. You see it in all sorts of paintings. It’s art.
KRISTINA
It’s not art. It’s … the other.
CHRIS
Take a picture if you want.
KRISTINA
No. No picture. I just want to look. And touch.
The touching should be quite strong. She should stroke his armpits and his nipples as Chris gets slightly alarmed, Blue Velvet the model.