SCENE 4
INT. UNI CAFÉ
The café is practically deserted. HARRIET and DAVID are sitting at a table. Harriet is drinking coffee and looking thoughtful. David is doodling on a serviette. There is a long pause.
David: Do you know what I think?
Harriet: What?
David: (hesitates) Nothing actually. I just don’t like long silences.
Harriet: (sighs). You know, thanks to you the entire student body is under suspicion.
David: Just trying to help.
Harriet: Well, stop helping before you get someone arrested. Like me.
David: Sorry.
Harriet: It’s ok. (pauses) I was wondering, how come you seem to be really… well, stupid, yet you pick up on clues really easily?
David: My grandmother was a policeman.
Harriet: Don’t you mean she was a policewoman?
David: No. The police force weren’t too keen on woman joining so she…
Harriet: (finishing) Pretended to be a man?
David: How did you know?
Harriet: Just a guess. Well, I suppose that’s better than pretending to be a goat.
David: She tried that first, but the police weren’t taking on livestock either.
Harriet: (leaning on her arm). You know, it’s worrying when you can say absolutely anything and I’m not the least bit surprised.
David: I must be growing on you.
Harriet: Like a fungus.
David: Well, I am a fun guy.
Harriet: (looks at him). What was that?
David: A joke.
Harriet: Please don’t.
David: Sorry.
(There is a long silence).
David (cont’d): Do you know what I think?
Harriet: (irritated). What?
David: We should find out who had a motive to kill Jessica Caine.
Harriet: I agree. What are the main motives for murder?
David: Money?
Harriet: She can’t have been very rich, she was a teacher. But still, someone might have inherited something of value from her.
David: Jealousy?
Harriet: Hmmm. I don’t see anyone being jealous of her.
David: Could she have been blackmailing someone?
Harriet: It’s possible. She was pretty vindictive. Maybe she had found out something about someone and was blackmailing them…
David: (finishing) And they got sick of it and stuck her with a knife?
Harriet: Exactly.
David: It couldn’t be a combination, could it?
Harriet: What?
David: She could have been blackmailing someone, and saved up a whole heap of money, so someone killed her to inherit it, and also she was killed by the person she was blackmailing.
Harriet: What, murdered twice you mean? I wouldn’t put it past her. Was there much blood when you found her?
David: I’m not sure, why?
Harriet: Well if she had, say, been poisoned first, or even strangled, and then she was stabbed, she wouldn’t have bled much.
David: Oh, I see. (thinks). She couldn’t have been stabbed and then poisoned could she?
Harriet: I think if someone had found her with a knife in her back they would have guessed she was already dead. Even you had enough sense for that.
David: So I did. So what’s the plan then, my dear Sherlock?
Harriet: Find out where she lived. See if she had any family. Interview them.
David: How do you propose we do that? Knock on the door and say ‘hi there, we’re suspected of murdering your relative. Did you do it?’
Harriet: I’d be a bit more tactful than that. (thinks) I know! We’re journalists, right?
David: No.
Harriet: No, this is hypothetical.
David: Hypo-what?
Harriet: Hypothetical.
(David looks blank)
Harriet: (cont’d): It’s imaginary.
David: I see.
Harriet: No you don’t.
David: No, I don’t.
Harriet: Put it this way. We go to the house…
David: Which house?
Harriet: (hesitates) We’ll work that out later. We go to the house, pretend we’re journalists, and ask a whole lot of questions. We’re bound to find out something useful.
David: Will that work?
Harriet: Only one way to find out.
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