LONDON SPY Page #9

Episode #5

---

Danny notices the cupboard door is ajar. He opens it --

All Alex’s clothes are there. Perfectly organized.

Nothing has been taken. No bags packed.

INT. ALEX’S APARTMENT. LIVING ROOM. NIGHT

Danny stares at the bathroom door. It’s closed. He

takes the handle.

He opens the door --

INT. ALEX’S APARTMENT. BATHROOM. NIGHT

Danny enters. The bathroom is spotless.

The bath is empty.

Danny opens the vanity closet. Everything there.

Toothbrush included.

Confused, Danny perches on the edge of the bath.

Staring at the keys which are in his hand.

Then he notices on the glistening white tiles: his shoe

has left damp footprints.

Danny crouches, examining the marks.

Not from the bathroom.

He stands and follows the footprints out --

INT. ALEX’S APARTMENT. LIVING ROOM. NIGHT

Danny traces his own footprints. They lead back to --

INT. ALEX’S APARTMENT. BEDROOM. NIGHT

A spot in front of the wardrobe. There’s a damp patch

on the floor. A small puddle.

Danny looks up at the ceiling and sees a corresponding

damp stain on the white ceiling.

He steps onto the bed, examining the ceiling more

carefully. It’s soaked. Something leaking through.

INT. ALEX’S APARTMENT. HALLWAY. NIGHT

Danny staring at a small steel handle in the ceiling.

An access panel. Concealed. Hard to spot.

43

LONDON SPY -EP 1 -SHOOTING SCRIPT

INT. ALEX’S APARTMENT. HALLWAY. NIGHT

Danny stands on a chair. He grips the handle and pulls.

With a jolt down come a flight of stairs.

Evidently, from his reaction, Danny has never seen this

before. He looks up.

A faint flickering light beckons him.

DANNY:

Alex?

He climbs the steps.

INT. ALEX’S APARTMENT. ATTIC. NIGHT

Danny climbs up through a narrow portal-like gap,

entering a dark & unsettling space.

Imagine climbing into the inside of a hollow timber

brain, sloping shallow lobes at the front, high in the

middle, shallow at the back.

This is a raw attic space. Exposed beams. There are no

windows. Not continuous with the apartment.

And yet...

In the very centre, the hub of this space, is a mattress.

A bed. Disturbed sheets. But not set up like a domestic

bed.

It’s a Japanese style low bed. With no headboard. There

are lights underneath creating a pool of soft light

around the bed. Noirish & inticing.

Opposite the bed is a wardrobe. Much like the wardrobe we

saw in Alex’s bedroom. Except instead of white this one

is black.

Hanging from the ceiling, creating a clearly defined

zone, is a circle of soft glow exposed filament bulbs.

Each beautiful bulb hangs from an individual wire. Each

beautiful bulb is a slightly different height creating

the effect of a halo around the bed, the shape of which

mirrors the pool of light on the floor.

This is someone’s special space.

The whole set up fits into a single frame - a single

image.

Someone has taken time and care to create this place.

44

LONDON SPY -EP 1 -SHOOTING SCRIPT

Danny is amazed. What-the-f***-is-this? It’s odd and

intriguing and beautiful all at the same time.

Danny is drawn forward.

In order to reach the bed he must pass through the cordon

of orange bulbs, he brushes them aside and they swing

back and forth behind him, like wind charms.

Danny looks down at the bed. The sheets are expensive.

Crumpled. Used.

The pillows are arranged, but not for sleeping.

On one side of the bed is cabinet. And on it is antique

Victorian box. Danny opens it. A music box. A ballet

figure turns. A song plays slowly, warped and distorted.

Danny explores this box further. He lifts up the ballet

figure. Underneath her we discover -

Set up like a Victorian chemist, exquisite glass jars.

Inside the jars are powders, liquids, pills.

Poppers in a glass bottle. Danny sniffs. Powders in glass

bottles. Of different kinds. Some crystals. Some chalk

fine.

There’s a silver straw. A mirror.

Danny empties some of the white powder onto the mirror.

He touches it, leaving a clearly defined white finger

print.

He tastes the powder. He recognizes the drug.

And now he notices above the bed: a series of mirrors.

Not just one, but several rectangular mirrors arranged in

a lattice shape. Danny stares up at his multiple

reflections.

And beyond the mirror, on the ceiling is sound proof

foam.

The entire attic has been insulted. Danny stands on the

bed and squeezes it, as though trying to understand it.

He looks down, seeing Alex’s specialist laptop on the

other side of the bed, on the floor.

Danny sits on the edge of the bed, beside the laptop.

He touches the strange metal keypad.

The screen comes to life. The laptop has been connected

to a bank of screens. They all come to life. Bright

light.

45

LONDON SPY -EP 1 -SHOOTING SCRIPT

Grainy footage begins playing on the screens - hard to

distinguish. Sexual in nature. Pleasure that sounds like

pain. A man. Gay porn.

Danny shuts the laptop, turning the screens off, plunging

the attic back into the previously soft orange light.

And now Danny turns his attention to the wardrobe.

In a direct parallel of the apartment sequence Danny

opens the doors -

Instead of Burberry suits there are sex suits, carefully

hung up, glossy black leather. Perfectly smooth. A

discrete zip down the back. Beautiful stitching and

expert craftsmanship.

One after the other.

They’re works of great skill. Expensive.

Danny looks down. There are boxes underneath the suits.

He opens one, coming face to face with a mask, mounted on

a plastic head, black plastic eyes staring at him.

A zipper for a mouth.

Now Danny crouches down, opening the drawers under the

wardrobe doors.

Again we parallel the apartment footage.

Instead of ties, in the first drawer, we find ropes,

carefully arranged, in neat knots, some fine, some

coarse.

Neatly arranged, from the thickest to the finest.

In the drawer below we discover sex toys - d*ldos, butt

plugs. Not cheap, expensive, each in a special case.

Everything perfect. Everything beautiful.

Danny stands. Confused. He shuts the wardrobe door and as

he does he sees something behind the wardrobe.

Beside the glow of a heater is the boarding school trunk

we saw earlier on the walk.

On its side, upright, like an obelisk.

There are clear damp marks around the base. The timbers

it rests upon are soaked.

For the first time Danny becomes scared.

46

LONDON SPY -EP 1 -SHOOTING SCRIPT

He takes a step towards it, pushing his way out of the

ring of bulbs which sway back and forth behind him.

Danny looks down, noticing the scratch marks on the

floor.

He crouches, running his finger over the timber scratch

marks, as though they told the story of what happened

here.

And they do...

The scratch marks lead from the bed to the trunk.

This trunk has moved from its original position.

Danny walks forward, for the first time reacting to the

smell.

He examines the liquid coming out of the lip. Not water.

Thicker. Glop. Translucent.

He reaches out, touching the top of the trunk, testing

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes