A Fantastic Fear of Everything

(TAPPING OF TYPEWRITER KEYS)

(TYPE WRITER BELL TINGS)

(JACK) Once upon a time...

not so long ago...

(BREATH ES HEAVILY)

(CREAKING)

Ah!

(BREATH ES HEAVILY)

This is the story of me.

Jack.

There I am, absolutely shitting it.

I'd been carrying a carving knife

with me for three weeks

due to an irrational fear

of being murdered.

I couldn't sleep at night.

As soon as I got into bed,

I started seeing killers.

(SCREAMING IN DISTANCE)

These killers were the subject

of a series of plays

I had been writing for television.

The nature of the project

necessitated research

into heinous Victorian criminals.

And I had unwittingly familiarized

myself with all the famous hackers,

dosers and severers

of the 19th century.

Faces that would've

frightened the Ripper.

Many a long night I spent there,

drenched in thoughts

of bloody murder.

I became particularly disturbed

by a man I called The Hendon Ogre.

A maniac from North London who had

boiled the arsenic out of fly papers

and introduced the result

into his lodger's broth.

I'd lie awake for hours,

thinking of the brute,

terrified someone was slipping

arsenic into my diet.

In the mornings, I'd inspect

grapefruit and milk bottle tops

looking for evidence of interference

with syringes.

Trivial events became vital clues

in the detection of my assassin.

(TELEPHONE RINGS)

If the telephone rang at half past

four, I'd look at the clock and say,

"it was half past four when the

telephone rang that fateful evening.

"How could anyone

have known at the time

"how important that telephone call

was to become?"

My situation became unbearable.

I suspected everyone and everything.

Innocent passersby.

Creeks in the corridor.

Bumps in the night got so bad,

I started plugging my head shut.

But I'd soon have to get up and

check for killers in the bathroom,

in the kitchen...

in the fridge,

or in the hallway,

where they kept a low profile,

crawling about in the shadows,

lurking behind creaky doors.

Ah!

Bloody windows, bloody draughts.

(WHISPERS) Oh, God, come on.

Argh!

This fear that I would be murdered

all began sometime before.

At lunch, to be exact.

The day I saw my literary agent...

- Newspaper?

- .. Clair De Grunwald.

- Thanks.

- No problem.

(JACK) She'd arranged to meet me at

a respectable establishment in Soho.

(VIETNAMESE ACCENT)

You like newspaper?

- Shall I bring sir the wine list?

- Yes. Okay.

Pleasure.

(JACK) "The body was found

in the East End of London,

"but the Hanoi Handshake

is the unmistakable calling card

"of a Vietnamese gang killing.

"According to one unnamed

police source

"downtown Hackney,

also known as Little Vietnam

"is now a bloody jungle...

"of organized crime.

"The missing fingers have yet

to be found."

Newspaper?

- Whoa, hey, no...

- Sir.

- No, it... Please...

- Jack?

- Clair.

- Under the table already?

It's not even 12:00.

- No, I...

- I'm sorry.

I'm afraid I only have an hour.

I've got to go

meet Ragsie Lawrence.

Remember Ragsie?

The dancing dyke?

She's just been made

commissioning editor at the BBC.

Can you believe it?

Never underestimate a hunchback,

that's what I say.

- Are you staying there all lunch?

- No, sorry.

Anyway...

It's good timing. I can tell her

how busy you are with your murders.

- Up to my elbows.

- Good.

- Do you have a title?

- "Decades of Death".

- Chilling.

- Well, if you want murder...

...then Victorian Britain

is the golden age.

I think murder's lost its sense

of theatre. What do we have now?

- It's just like kids...

- Mindless violence?

Exactly. Yes. Killers don't put any

thought into their murders anymore.

- Have you heard of Long Ear?

- Can't say I have, no.

Terrifying Polish plumber

who hacked off a Frenchman's head.

Disposed of the limbs, but couldn't

think of what to do with the head.

Eventually he utilized

his gas-fired crucible

filled the mouth with lead,

slung the thing in the river.

Can you imagine?

I'm sorry, sir. This is a non-smoking

restaurant. Thank you.

- Are you ready to order, madam?

- Do you know what you're having?

I'll just have a beer.

I'm not very hungry.

- One beer.

- This is my treat, darling.

Well, then I will have the chicory

salad with asparagus croutons,

chorizo and poached egg to start.

Followed by the salmon

and leek fish cake

with mushy peas, chips

and chive cream. Thank you. Lovely.

People love a good murder.

(JACK) I began to tell Clair about

my good friend Professor Friedkin,

author of an inuential paper

on the criminal stare,

an ocular condition

that instantly identified a madman.

Monsieur?

(CLAIR) Jack?

Jack? Jack?

Jack?

- Jack?

- Yes. Sorry.

- Are you all right?

- Yes.

Yes. I'm sorry.

(GIGGLES NERVOUSLY)

- What was I talking about?

- The book.

- The criminal stare.

- Oh, yes, yes. the criminal stare.

Yeah. I found... I've trawled through

hundreds of these photographs and...

Um, when you kill someone,

when you take a life,

you acquire these awful eyes,

you know, like a shark or a chicken.

- How frightful.

- But it's not just a horror show.

I've realised that's not the reason

I have to write this.

No, it's a detective story, you see,

about how they become killers.

How do they get there? What fills

them with need to victimize and kill?

- Why choose mass murder?

- Why not become a writer?

Well, actually, writers

and serial killers are very similar.

They're practically brothers.

Hemingway says,

What do you need to become a writer?

"An unhappy childhood." It's

the same thing with serial killers.

Whatever happened to the hedgehog?

- What?

- He had to cross the road...

...and go into the woods,

but he was afraid.

- Harold the Hedgehog?

- Harold the Hedgehog.

Dear little chap.

Whatever happened to that story?

- You never finished him.

- He nearly finished me.

He wrecked my marriage,

prickly c*nt.

No, he did, Clair.

I'm sorry, the stress of it.

Drove Catherine out of my life.

What do you wanna talk about him for?

Darling, I'm just thinking you need

to earn some money, that's all.

This death thing could take a while.

Timmy the Tortoise can't

pay the bills.

I don't want him to. I didn't mean

to become a children's author.

- It was a terrible accident.

- It was your destiny.

Look, why not rattle off

a little bedtime story, mm?

- Timmy goes to the seaside perhaps?

- Oh, God.

Or Harold. How did it start?

"Once upon a time,

there was a hedgehog called Harold

"Who lived in a bush." (GIGGLES)

(MUSIC BOX PLAYS)

(VOICE ECHOING)

Or Little Johnny Rabbit.

The world is dying

for another Little Johnny Rabbit.

Little Johnny Rabbit is dead.

So is Timmy,

so is the f***ing hedgehog.

They're lying in the road,

covered in blood. I killed them.

Tell that to the kids.

(THUNDER)

Darling, we're going

to make this work.

Just try not to worry too much,

and take care of yourself.

You know me better

than anyone, Clair.

Yes, I do. You're a workaholic

and you're sensitive.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes