To Kill Again
Pilot episode – ‘Downtown’
Written by
Darren Howell
Copyright© 2016 by Darren Howell
All characters and events in this work – even those based on real people – are entirely fictional. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this eScript or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
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FADE IN:
EXT. BUCK’S ROW, WHITECHAPEL - NIGHT
We open on a narrow, deserted street. Gas lamps dance shadows here and there. Small cottages line one side of the street, a Victorian schoolhouse dominating the other.
SCREEN TITLE: BUCK’S ROW, WHITECHAPEL, LONDON, 1888
A drunken prostitute staggers into view.
Meet MARY ANN NICHOLS, 43. Heavily overweight and about to enter the history books for all the wrong reasons. Dressed in typical working girl garb, she lurches along the cobbles, slaughtering the ditty of the day.
NICHOLS: (sings) I’m a young girl... and have just come over. Over from the country where they do things --
She attempts to dance. Trips. Ends up face down in a puddle. Nichols claws the cobbles with two shaky hands and pulls herself up. Catching her reflection, she sighs mournfully.
Desperate features stare back from the water.
NICHOLS: Look at you, poor old cow.
She grabs onto the brickwork of the school. Glancing up at its facade, she slurs spitefully in full-on Cockney:
NICHOLS: I never got any bleedin’ education!
She huffs. Clambers up. Leans against a big set of wooden gates.
NICHOLS: Come on, girl.
She straightens her black bonnet. Shuffles forward until something makes her stop. Nichols turns slowly as a non-defined shadow climbs over her.
We do not, nor will we, see who’s casting it.
Nichols’ face breaks into a welcoming smile.
NICHOLS: ‘ello, love. You wanna sing with me?
The shadow doesn’t reply.
NICHOLS: Come on there, don’t be shy. Dance with me then?
She hoists up her skirt and begins to stomp her feet to some ad hoc, inebriated dance steps.
NICHOLS: Tra-la-la-la... la.
She soon stops when the shadow doesn’t reciprocate, shuddering as whoever this is slips behind her. A plume of breath billows against her face and neck.
NICHOLS: My, you’re a strange one and --
CLOSE UP: a knife flashes in the dull light -- that’s all we see. The glistening blade that tears out Nichols’ throat. Her neck explodes red, eyes rolling over in her head, as the blade thrashes again.
Nichols tries to scream, but only blood spurts from her mouth. She slips down to the cobbles. Her feet jerk in the throes of death as...
The shadow sweeps over her body.
EXT. BUCK’S ROW, WHITECHAPEL - LATER
A Victorian POLICEMAN stares down at us. Unsympathetic. Just another --
POLICEMAN: Bloody drunk! Come on, missus. On your feet, if you please.
He taps his boot against a woman’s stockings. No response. The Policeman moves his gas hand lamp up the woman’s body, illuminating her in a dull glow. Skirt. Petticoat. Nothing untoward...
CLOSE UP: the lamp brightens on Nichols’ face. Purple tongue protruding between bloody lips, glazed eyes staring up at the heavens.
The Policeman kneels down next to her, pulls down the neck of her petticoat. She’s drenched in blood.
POLICEMAN: Bugger me!
He tumbles back on his ass. Claws at his police whistle and blows hard. PEEP! PEEEEP!
POLICEMAN: MURDER! MURDER! COME QUICKLY!
And then we pull back and watch as things begin to happen at a super, accelerated rate:
- more horrified policemen arrive.
- curious residents, policemen holding them at bay.
- another policeman. Pulling a handcart.
- policemen pick up Nichols’ body. Forensics non-existent in 1888, they just throw it onto the cart and wheel it away.
- policemen leave the scene except for one. He pours a bucket of water over the blood and sweeps it away.
- all is quiet, like the murder never even happened.
We pull back along the road... Farther... It starts to rain... Farther... Gas lamps morph into modern electric lighting... Skyscrapers sprouting like weeds beyond the rooftops... Farther until we enter an --
UNMARKED POLICE CAR
Yes, a modern motor vehicle.
Two detectives survey the empty street through a rain-lashed windshield.
SCREEN TITLE: 130 YEARS LATER... 2018
At the wheel, Detective Inspector JOHN DYSON, 36. Handsome, roguish rule-breaker, compensating boyish twinkle. He blows the steam off his coffee, motioning at the deserted street ahead.
DYSON: Can you believe they threw a bucket of water over the blood?
Thoroughly bored and equally exhausted, Detective Sergeant SARAH CLARKE, 35, cool-headed, good at her job, but too damn beautiful to be a cop, blinks her despair.
SARAH: Tragic.
She slumps back in her seat. Lets her eyes slip shut.
SARAH: Wake me up if something happens. Ever.
Dyson doesn’t take his eyes from the street. Captivated by the imagined activity all those years ago.
DYSON: But just think, this is where it started. The mystery, the folklore.
Sarah paints an invisible banner across the interior of the car.
SARAH: Ta-dah! Jack the Ripper!
As she talks her voice transforms into a deep, parodied American. Trailer Man.
SARAH: A faceless enigma. The uncaught murderer of five Victorian prostitutes. All horribly mutilated. Mary Ann Nichols, followed a week later by Annie Chapman. A month passes. Whitechapel explodes with fear and speculation until dum-dum-duuuum... the ‘Double Event’. Two hapless, pathetic woman, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes, slaughtered like pigs, within an hour of each other. Speculation rises. Is the killer a surgeon, a member of the Royal family? As the police investigation,
lead by Detective Inspector Edmund Reid --
DYSON: Abberline! Reid was just the head of H Division; Abberline lead the actual --
SARAH: As the investigation begins to crumble, the Ripper plays his final card. His cruelest trick. Mary Jane Kelly. A murder so foul, so depraved, that even today it --
DYSON: Finished?
SARAH: Yes. (in her own voice) Yes. Oh, come on... It’s boring, John. Nobody cares anymore.
DYSON: The tourists care.
SARAH: Yippe-dee. A few Japs and rich Yanks. Most of Whitechapel don’t even know the name. Christ sake, most of Whitechapel doesn’t even speak English. There’s enough real crime in London. Nobody cares about Jack the Ripper anymore. You’re London’s leading authority on something nobody gives a shit about.
Ouch, that hurt. Sarah glances over at Dyson as he turns away, the remains of something, poorly hidden in her gaze.
CLOSE UP: Sarah’s hand comes to rest on his, squeezing gently.
SARAH: Okay, I’m a bitch. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.
Dyson doesn’t answer. Pulls his hand away.
SARAH: You can understand my negativity? Nearly midnight, stuck in a car, in this pissing weather, probably not getting paid for it.
She pauses, hoping he’ll look at her. He doesn’t.
SARAH: With you. Talking about Jack the Ripper. Again.
DYSON: Go home then.
Sarah shakes away the offer. Picks a newspaper off the floor. We’re instantly drawn to a headline that reads ‘US PRESIDENT ARRIVES IN LONDON’.
Sarah scans though it for the umpteenth time. Folds it with a resounding sigh.
SARAH: Oh, this is bullshit. Nobody’s coming.
DYSON: They’ll be here.
SARAH: So your informant says.
DYSON: He’s never wrong.
SARAH: This is a man called Sticky Dave?
Dyson doesn’t respond. Sarah changes tact.
SARAH: I take it you informed ADS about our little jaunt?
DYSON: Area Drug Squad are far too busy for this. They only want the sharks. This is small time.
SARAH: But you did phone them?
DYSON: Course I did.
SARAH: And?
Dyson makes an awkward face.
DYSON: They were engaged.
SARAH: Unpaid and unauthorized? Great. So, on a fish scale, how big is this? If it ever goes down.
DYSON: This is, I dunno... a tuna?
Sarah sits up. Glares hard.
SARAH: Tuna? Tuna are big fish, John. We are in so much trouble.
DYSON: No we’re not. Jesus, stop panicking. You know that’s why we never worked. You were always too by the book.
SARAH: I was too by the book? I don’t believe it. How dare... No, we never worked cos you were always too wrapped up with your disappearing daddy issues to give me what I needed.
DYSON: What? Don’t bring my dad into this.
SARAH: Oh, come on. You weren’t the first kid whose dad ran out on --
DYSON: He never ran out!
Leaving them arguing we pull out of the car, into the rain... focusing on their licence plate as we go... Traveling back farther along the street. Farther... farther until we enter another car.
SHITTY JALOPY
You could easily mistake it as just being dumped or abandoned.
Instead, two fully paid up members of the criminal fraternity sit in near darkness, watching the cop car ahead.
Illuminated only by the glow of a tablet computer, a weasly-looking Cockney GEEZER, types away at the keyboard.
A screen unfolds: ‘METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT - VEHICLE IDENTIFICATION DATABASE’.
GEEZER: Boom! We’re in. I’m too fucking good.
He hits some more keys.
The screen changes to ‘ENTER VEHICLE LICENCE PLATE NUMBER’.
The Geezer looks down the street, tapping away. His partner in crime, the driver, a white RASTAFARIAN who’s convinced he’s Jamaican, sparks up a joint. The Geezer exaggerates a cough.
GEEZER: D’you have to?
RASTAFARIAN: Ya man. For medicinal purposes.
GEEZER: Bollocks.
The tablet screen begins to scroll data.
GEEZER: I knew it. I fucking knew it! It’s the pigs. Didn’t I tell you? Old Bill! We’ve been set up.
RASTAFARIAN: Babylon! What we gonna do now?
The Geezer considers their options.
GEEZER: Frankie don’t want no screw ups. Fuck it, kill ‘em.
The Rastafarian floods the car with cannabis smoke and cheers.
RASTAFARIAN: Ya man! Let’s cook us some bacon.
He reaches behind his seat. Pulls out a disposable rocket launcher. He winds down the window, manoeuvring his torso out into the rain.
GEEZER: Try not to miss!
EXT. DURWARD STREET, WHITECHAPEL - CONTINUOUS
The Rastafarian laughs as his finger flips up the safety. Tightens on the trigger.
RASTAFARIAN: Fuck you, man.
The projectile spews out of the barrel and snakes toward the cop car. WHOOO --
INT. POLICE CAR (STATIONARY) - CONTINUOUS
-- OOOSH! The driver’s mirror aglow, Dyson and Sarah exchange terrified glances.
DYSON: OUT!
But they’re just too slow. The next moment is their last.
EXT. DURWARD STREET, WHITECHAPEL - CONTINUOUS
KABOOM! The car explodes in a devastating fireball. We hold on the remains of the car, two burning figures clearly visible in the front seats.
There are no survivors.
EXT. COMMERCIAL STREET, WHITECHAPEL - NIGHT
A convoy of ominous black vehicles race through the rain.
There’s an American big rig, a smaller truck and two ex-US school buses. All the vehicles have blacked-out windows and are sandwiched between two threateningly large SUVs.
The convoy slows, turning into a narrow, darkened street. A rusted sign on one wall reads --
COLBART STREET
The convoy stops outside a huge, dilapidated Victorian warehouse daubed with graffiti.
Immediately, a dozen men in unmarked windcheaters and baseball caps eject and a well-orchestrated operation begins.
One of the men smashes the huge double doors of the warehouse open with a police-issue battering ram.
Another fires up some kind of futuristic laser cutter, slicing through the brickwork next to the doors to widen the entrance. Men immediately set to work with sledgehammers to take down the remaining wall.
More men nail gun metal sheeting over every broken window.
48 seconds later one of the men gives a thumbs up. The smaller vehicles all pull into the darkened --
WAREHOUSE
Park up right at the end.
Then the big rig begins to reverse in, easy now the doorway’s widened. It stops with a hiss of brakes, men joining prefabricated metal walls between its protruding cab and the warehouse wall.
Whatever these people are doing, they sure as hell don’t want anyone seeing it.
As men position portable floodlights all around, which immediately start to snap on, the whole side of the big rig’s trailer begins to slide out on hydraulics; doubling its internal size.
One MAN takes off his baseball cap to reveal a grim, gaunt face. It’s the kind of face that instantly tells us that this guy’s in charge. And that he’s a ball breaker.
He yells out to the other men with an American accent:
MAN: Move it, people! You know the drill. Claws, reactor, power tap, chronology sync, immediate prep and test fire in two hours. I want to be ready to rock at... (checks watch) ...zero-seven hundred. At the latest.
He watches for a moment as they set to it and then pops the cap from a plastic pill bottle. Shakes a large tablet into his mouth.
And as he does that, the man with the laser cutter begins to slice into the concrete floor below.
INT. DETECTIVE’S OFFICE, POLICE STATION - DAY
A dozen detectives work their latest case. Some sit at computers, some at phones. One wipes clean a white board. Begins to stick up photos of Durward Street.
SCREEN TITLE: WHITECHAPEL POLICE STATION. THE NEXT DAY
One man steps up at their head. An exhausted, glum Detective Sergeant. JERRY MATTHEWS, 40s, clears his throat.
MATTHEWS: Right, well I guess this falls to me. For now.
The detectives stop and turn to him.
MATTHEWS: Two bodies. You all know who they --
A text message steals his words. He pulls his cell phone.
CLOSE UP: ‘BAILIFFS R HERE AGAIN!!!’
Matthews sighs and replies: ‘NOT NOW!’ He tosses the cell phone on the nearest desk. Gets back into it.
MATTHEWS: Sorry... Two bodies.
INT. CORRIDOR, POLICE STATION - CONTINUOUS
CLOSE UP: pant legs and boots. A man and woman’s. In a hurry.
MATTHEWS: (O.S.) They’re with the path lab. I’m pushing for a preliminary ASAP, but cause of death seems pretty conclusive so far.
CLOSE UP: a man’s hand reaches for a door.
INT. DETECTIVE’S OFFICE, POLICE STATION - DAY
The double doors swing open as Matthews makes a gun with his fingers...
MATTHEWS: Both single tapped in the head from close range.
...and Dyson and Sarah rush in. Both clearly exhausted but... very much alive!
DYSON: Morning all!
What the fuck?!
A chorus of salutations greet Dyson and Sarah as they peel themselves out of their soaked jackets. Matthews nods and gladly hands the floor to Dyson.
DYSON: Yeah, so Mickey Dennis and Ronnie Richards. Khan’s boys. Didn’t have a very good night. This was a professional hit.
He looks at Sarah.
DYSON: Guy dressed all in black?
Sarah concurs with a nod.
DYSON: The shell case he missed is with ballistics as we speak.
A black detective, GARY KNAPPER, 30’s, nods at him.
KNAPPER: So what happened, guv? Walk us through it.
Dyson flashes Sarah a brief sideways glance.
DYSON: We were in the car. Talking.
Sarah returns his look awkwardly.
SARAH: Just talking.
FLASHBACK - INT. POLICE CAR (STATIONARY) - NIGHT
To Kill Again: Episode One Page 1