Scene One

Ariel shot of a rundown area of London. Terraced rows of houses on cobbled streets. The camera zooms in on the upstairs window of one of the houses where Rita, a teenage girl with peroxide blonde hair, is leaning out over the sill smoking a cigarette. Behind her trad jazz is being played on a portable transistor radio. There comes the sound of her mother's voice calling from somewhere downstairs.

MUM - Turn off that noise and get yourself down here sharpish.

Rita heaves a last drag on the cigarette and flicks the glowing butt out of her open window.
She switches the transistor off and passes down a narrow stairwell whose walls are decorated in faded floral patterned wallpaper and along the equally narrow passageway that leads the kitchen.

Her mum has plastic rollers in her hair. She's dressed in her blue overall from her shift at the factory.

MUM - I need you to take this shopping bag up the junction to your grandma's.

RITA (voice raised) - Up the bleedin' junction? Not on your Nellie. It would mean cutting across the waste ground. Have you seen how tall the weeds have grown after all that rain?

MUM- Stick to the path and you'll be fine.

RITA - But it's Friday. I always go down the youth club on a Friday night.

MUM - I'm only asking you to go up the junction not all the way to Timbuk - bleedin' - tu. You'll be back in good time for the youth club.

RITA - I suppose (she takes the bag from her mother) What's inside?

MUM - Your old grandma has been feeling a bit out of sorts recently. I got her a sausage roll, and a cream bun, and a quarter of them boiled sweets she likes.

RITA - Did you ever think that I might fancy a sausage roll and a cream bun?

MUM - Well they ain't for you. And don't you go nibbling at them neither. And put on your red pakamac. Ida Bradley said she heard on the BBC that it's going to rain again tonight.

RITA - My red pakamac? I hate that thing. It makes me look ridiculous.

MUM -You wouldn't want the rain messing up your hair do before you go down the youth club, would you?

RITA (blushing as she rolls her eyes) Fine, I'll wear my red blooming pakamac.

SCENE TWO

Dressed in her red pakamac Rita is swinging the shopping bag as she click-clacks along the cobbles on a pair of stiletto heels. As she passes an alleyway a wavy-haired boy emerges from the shadows. He is dressed in a faded jeans and an oversized shirt. An axe is slung over his shoulder. Stealthily he creeps up behind Rita and grabs her around the waste with his free arm.

RITA (squealing as she swings round to face him.) Tommy Tucker! You shouldn't go creeping up on people like that. Give a girl a heart attack, so you will.

TOMMY - That's a fine coat, you've got on.

RITA- I hate it. It makes me look like a perishing tomato.

TOMMY (chuckling) Never seen a tomato in high heels.

RITA- (spotting the axe). Does your old man know you're walking around with an axe?

TOMMY - (tapping the side of his nose with his grimy index finger). What he don't know won't hurt him.

RITA - You could have someone's eye out with that. Where did you get it anyway?

TOMMY - Borrowed it from my uncle Sid. He was a fireman in the war. Used it for freeing people that were trapped in houses bombed by Hitler's mob.

RITA - Where you off to with a bleedin' axe anyway?

TOMMY - The demolition site on Palace Street. Chop up some of the timber they've chucked from the old tenements. Floorboards and skirting and such. Sell it as kindling to the folks that live in the houses above the shops in the precinct. Most of them still use coal fires.

RITA - Do people pay good money for kindling?

TOMMY - I'll probably make ten bob tonight.

RITA - (winking) You can treat me a hotdog at the youth club later then.

TOMMY - (winking back) What's it worth?

RITA - A punch up the hooter if you ain't careful. (She turns on her heels and waves her hand.) Catch you later, alligator.

TOMMY - In a while, crocodile.

SCENE FOUR

Swinging the shopping bag Rita enters the waste ground. The has begun to set. On either side of the path the weeds are tall and wanton. In the gathering gloom of dusk, they loom menacingly over her. She's only gone a quarter of the way along the track when a man in a long overcoat and a trilby hat steps out onto the path.

RITA (jutting her chin) - I know you. You're that Leon Corledo. Down the greyhound races they call you Wolfie, on account of how big and bad you make out you are. Let me past. I ain't scared of you.

WOLFIE - I know you too. You're Madge Hood's kid. What you got in the bag? Anything worth nicking?

RITA - Just a sausage roll, and a cream bun, and some boiled sweets for my poor old grandma what lives up the junction.

WOLFIE - Hand them over. I'm famished. Been on the go all day on account of a bit of trouble I ran into at the track.

RITA (indignant) - These are for my grandma what's been poorly.

WOLFIE - Take in lodgers, does she? I could do with a place to lie low. How about you take me there now? (from the inside pocket of his overcoat he pulls out a razor and flicks out the blade to threaten her). Maybe I'll have my way with you first. Show you just how big and bad I can be.

RITA (eyes wide) - I warn you. My boyfriend is over by the tenements with a big bloody axe. All I got to do is whistle and he'll come running.

(Just then a steam train passing over the nearby viaduct blows its whistle. Rita turns to look. When she turns back Wolfie is gone.)


SCENE FOUR


Wolfie emerges from the weed infested waste ground onto the run-down little street that bounds the railway junction. A discarded newspaper blows along the pavement. The headline reads 'Murder at the Dog Track - Manhunt Ensues'. A picture of Wolfie accompanies the article. A boy is kicking a football against the wall of one of the houses. Thunder rumbles in the darkening sky. It starts to rain. The boy turns up his shirt collar and picks up his ball to run home. Wolfie steps in front of him trilby pulled down low on his brow.

WOLFIE - Do you know where Madge Hood's old ma lives? I have a message for her from her granddaughter.

The boy points to a paint flaked door which bears the number thirteen, then runs off with his head down against the rain. As the rain intensifies Wolfie sprints over the road and knocks on the door. After a moment the door opens a crack.

GRANDMA - What's all that banging?

WOLFIE - Sorry to disturb you, but I just ran into your granddaughter, and she asked me to bring you something, so she wouldn't get wet in all this rain.

GRANDMA - Silly mare. She should have worn that red pakamac I got for her birthday. (She opens the door a little wider.) What was it she asked you to bring me?

WOLFIE - A sausage roll, a cream bun and a bag of boiled sweets.

GRANDMA (narrowing her eyes) Where are they then?

WOLFIE - In my pockets. You'd be amazed at how big my pockets are. All the better for hiding stuff.

GRANDMA - (pulling the door wide and stepping to the side) Best come in out of the rain and I'll put the kettle on.

As the door closes behind Wolfie the camera zooms in on the kitchen window. Grandma is seen silhouetted against the drawn blind as she fills the kettle from the tap. The silhouette of Wolfie appears behind her, razor raised ominously above his head.

SCENE FIVE

Now it is Rita who emerges from the waste ground. The rain is lashing down, sending water gushing along the gutters and into the drains, bouncing from the pulled up red hood of Rita's pakamac. Splashing through torrents of water she rushes over to number thirteen and knocks loudly on the door.

WOLFIE - (in a high-pitched mimicry of Grandma's voice) Is that you, dear? Let yourself in. The door isn't locked.

RITA - (pushing down the handle to open the door) What's wrong with your voice, Grandma?

WOLFIE - I'm just a little hoarse, dear.

RITA - (stepping in to the hall and trying the light switch which fails to work) How come it's so dark in here?

WOLFIE - I see all the better in the dark these days.

RITA - Where are you?

WOLFIE - On the sofa bed in the front room. Come and snuggle up under the covers with me.

RITA - (stepping cautiously into the front room) Oh grandma. How come you look so big.

WOLFIE (sounding urgent and almost slipping back into his normal voice). Get under the covers and I'll show what it's like to get eaten.

Rita gasps and takes a step back. At that moment a flash of lightning reveals the body of her real grandma sprawled on the kitchen floor with her throat cut. Rita throws the shopping bag at the figure in the bed and turns to run. Wolfie leaps from the bed, snarling and growling as if he were a real wolf. With seconds to spare Rita manages to get out the front door. In her red pakamac she dashes across the rain lashed street, kicking off her stilettos so she can run faster.

RITA - (rushing back into the waste ground) Help! Help! There's been a murder (her voice is muffled by a crash of thunder and the rumble of another train on the viaduct).

WOLFIE - (hot on her heels) Here, here, little piggy. Don't be afraid of the big, bad wolf.

RITA - (veering into the tall weeds) Help! Help!

WOLFIE - (following her in) You can't outrun me.

RITA - (finding herself in a clearing where an old pram and a car tyre have been dumped) Someone help! He's murdered my grandma!

WOLFIE (emerging into the clearing, drenched to the skin in grandma's sodden dressing gown and brandishing his open razor). I'll have my way with you. Then I'll slit you ear to ear. You know too much, and you saw too much.

RITA (desperately looking for something to protect herself with) Keep away. I warn you.

Wolfie tosses his head back and mocks her with laughter. Lightning flashes in the sky again. Just as Wolfie makes a lunge for Rita a figure emerges from the tall forest of weeds. It's Tommy, with his axe held high above his head. Wolfie tries to grab Rita's wrist. Tommy brings the dull end of the axe down on Wolfie's head. Wolfie falls to the waterlogged ground unconscious.

CLOSING SEQUENCE

Camera pans out to an ariel shot of the rain still lashing down on the waste ground, the junction, and the viaduct. In the clearing Tommy has his arm around Rita as they are interviewed by a detective in a raincoat. Still semi-conscious Wolfie is being led toward a waiting Black Mariah by two uniformed police constables.

Trad jazz plays as the credits roll.