INT. MUSEUM. DAY

Away from the modernised part of the museum, the display cases are heavy, Gothic, crowded with objects - ammonite fossils, chunks of meteorite, arrows and feathered bows, leathery things that could be shrunken heads.

They walk through in single file - Nina leading, Rory and Jenny hand in hand.

Jenny stops and stares at him.

Nina has disappeared down a narrow corridor. They can hear her footsteps receding. Jenny looks back. The way they came looks dark and deserted.

They follow Nina.

INT. - MUSEUM STOREROOMS - DAY

Shelves along the sides of a long set of rooms are lined with parcels wrapped in brown paper, and a jumble of strange objects. A harsh overhead bulb casts jagged shadows from the weird assortment - a cuckoo clock, sea creatures in a jar, a 1970s computer, a birdcage...

Rory rips a bit of paper away from one of the parcels. An old anatomical model, of a man's head and torso with the skin removed to show muscle and half the brain exposed, is partly revealed. Rory jumps back.

She taps the side of her nose confidentially.

The two children look at her blankly.

An Innovation

The system of status-related hats was a great success. No more wasting time at parties talking to someone, only to discover they were a junior executive's girlfriend or a waiter. James was delighted to finally make it to the level of trilby, although he noticed that anyone above a pith helmet now ignored him completely.

NARRATOR (V.O.)
You just make life difficult for yourself.

A mild-looking young man, JIM, 36, rolls up his shirt sleeves and starts wiping the dust from shelves.

NARRATOR (V.O.)
Every time the dust starts to build up, you get rid of it all!

Jim shakes the duster out of the open window.

NARRATOR (V.O.)
And so you have to start again from scratch. This is madness.

Jim is stroking his gleaming sideboard with satisfaction.

NARRATOR (V.O.)
You leave yourself totally unprotected. And then you complain that your libido is low! What do you think the dust is there for – no reason at all, I suppose?

EXT. THE ENTRANCE OF WILSON ELECTRONICS LTD. DAY

The steps up to an imposing office building, with a sign saying Wilson Electronics over the shiny glass automatic doors.

NARRATOR (V.O.)
Look at the workplace.

The automatic doors open welcomingly.

INT. OPEN-PLAN OFFICE. DAY
Workers go about their business quietly, in a bland office environment. There is the gentle hum of printers and photocopiers, and people talking in low voices on the phone.

NARRATOR (V.O.)
The power structure is not quite what you think it is. It's revealed in the details that you miss.

Close-up on a series of computer monitors. Four have the odd Post-it note stuck to them but are otherwise unadorned and all alike; the fifth has a brightly coloured outbreak of toys, plastic animals, cars, etc all over it, all pointing triumphantly upwards.

On the top is a tiny plastic strongman, raising his bulging arms in victory.

NARRATOR (V.O.)
You humans just don't know what you should be looking at, that's the problem. You don't pay close enough attention.

INT. OFFICE KITCHEN. DAY
A smug-looking slim woman, in revealing clothes, SADIE, is talking to a sad-looking plump woman in a baggy T-shirt and jeans, JANE, as they make coffee.

Ultra closeup - microbes swarm and wriggle under a microscope.

NARRATOR (V.O.)
You are mostly made up of bacteria, for a start.

Sadie is directing Jane through the putting of instant coffee in mugs, without doing any of it herself. Jane bustles around; Sadie is motionless, apart from moving just very slightly aside to let Jane take milk out of the fridge she is leaning on.

NARRATOR (V.O.)
If you're fat, it's because your internal bacteria are efficient. They break down your food into the maximum number of calories. They work hard. They are dedicated.

Sadie stirs her coffee.

NARRATOR (V.O.)
This woman is the picture of lazy, ineffective, unmotivated internal bacteria. And yet she's the one you waste your hopeless dreams on!

EXT. DESERTED STREET. DAY
A single black glove is stuck on a railing.

NARRATOR (V.O.)
You reject the things that are important as lowly and insignificant. You fail to read the signs.

Jim walks past the glove, ignoring it.

EXT. THE ENTRANCE OF WILSON ELECTRONICS LTD. DAY
Jim is stamping on the mat outside the entrance, trying to make the automatic doors notice him and open.

NARRATOR (V.O.)
Here you are, on a typical day.

People push past Jim, seeming not to notice him. He is invisible.

Sadie rushes past and goes into the building.

Jim smiles at her and greets her but she ignores him.

He steps up to follow her through the doors but they close in his face.

NARRATOR (V.O.)
Stop! Think. And look.

A distant shriek rings out from offstage.

Pause. Ned, Gavro and Trifko look at each other.

NED: Just a fox.

GAVRO: Or drekavac…

Pause.

GAVRO: That’s what my gran would say.

TRIFKO: Drekavac. God, you really are a yokel.

GAVRO: I didn’t say I believed in it.

TRIFKO: Yeah.

GAVRO: I’m just telling you. We used to hear that all the time when we stayed with her.

They all listen.

GAVRO: And some of the sheep were always dead in the morning…

NED: What the hell is drekavac?

TRIFKO: ‘The screamer’. ARRGH! (he screams in NED’s face)

NED pushes TRIFKO away.

TRIFKO: The old peasant ladies frighten their kids with it. Don’t they, Gavro? (assumes old peasant lady voice) ‘Gavvy dear, if you don’t eat up all your weasel stew, drekavac will come and TEAR YOUR THROAT OUT!’

The scream rings out again and they all jump. Ned and Trifko quickly try to recover their cool.

TRIFKO: (to NED) You know, I heard Ferdinand was out hunting and he shot a white stag. It screamed like a woman.

NED: (pointing the gun) He deserves to die then.

NED and TRIFKO laugh.

They all sit down to rest.

GAVRO: I’m not making it up. They’d have their throats all chewed out.

TRIFKO: Is that why you’re so jumpy today?

GAVRO: No!

TRIFKO: Come on. You’ve been looking over your shoulder ever since we got here.

GAVRO: I’m just keeping an eye out. If you’d ever been in the countryside you’d know. That’s what you do in the forest.

TRIFKO: Oh-h. Right. The forest code. ‘Be alert. Always be ready for the unexpected.’

Suddenly he gasps and points over Gavro’s shoulder.

TRIFKO: OhmyGod!

GAVRO: (wheeling round) What!

TRIFKO: SQUIRRRRREL!

He clutches his head in mock terror and pretends to run away.

NED: He’s joking.

GAVRO: I know! (Pause). It’s not drekavac you want to worry about in this forest anyway.

Pause.

NED: (trying to seem casual) What is it, then?

GAVRO: Oh… you don’t want to know.

TRIFKO: You know, you’re right. We don’t.

He starts to fiddle with fake nonchalance with the gun, turning his back on Gavro.

GAVRO: It’s Likho you want to worry about.

NED: (to TRIFKO) What’s Likho?

TRIFKO: Never heard of it.

GAVRO: Haven’t you ever heard that saying? “When Likho sleeps awake it not”?

TRIFKO: This another of your gran’s inventions? She knows how to keep the troops in line doesn’t she.

GAVRO: Oh no. Everyone round here knows about Likho.

Pause.

NED: Well, go on then. You might as well tell us about it.

GAVRO: Not it. Her…

Nothing could break down the barriers which Nature had erected between us.

In Love... With an Animalcule!

INT. LINLEY’S FLAT. NIGHT (B/W, FLASHBACK)
Linley is sitting, looking through the microscope, moving the slide around.

He leaps in astonishment from his seat, then scrambles back into his chair to stare through the eyepiece.

INT. ANIMULA’S WORLD. DAY

As if through the eyepiece, we see, in front of a stylised painted backdrop showing a sylvan scene, a semi-naked nymph, clad in wisps of chiffon, dancing around. The effect is like an end-of-the-pier Victorian pornographic peepshow styled by Julia Margaret Cameron.

The nymph, ANIMULA, is young and beautiful, balletic in her movements.

LINLEY (V.O.)
Animula! My heart’s delight!

INT. ANIMULA’S WORLD. DAY
Through the eyepiece frame: Animula flits about her ‘stage’, picking flowers and fruit.

LINLEY (V.O.)
Those eyes of mystic violet. That lustrous hair! Oh, light of my life!

INT. LINLEY’S FLAT. NIGHT (B/W, FLASHBACK)
Linley gazes rapt through his microscope.

INT. ANIMULA’S WORLD. DAY
Animula, seems to hear something in the distance; she exaggeratedly listens, then sweeps theatrically ‘offstage’.

An empty set is left.

INT. LINLEY’S FLAT. NIGHT (B/W, FLASHBACK)
Linley becomes agitated, moving the slide about as he looks in vain for Animula through the microscope’s eyepiece.

LINLEY (V.O.)
It seemed as though I had suddenly gone blind. What could have caused this disappearance? Had she a lover, a husband?

He puts his head in his hands.

LINLEY (cont’d)
The agony of my sensations startled me. I battled against the fatal conclusion, but in vain. I had no escape from it...

A silent-film caption reads:

In Love... With an Animalcule!

Linley takes his eye from the eyepiece, and his gaze falls on the glass slide with the tiny drop of water imprisoned on it.

LINLEY (cont’d)
Within that miserable drop of water dwelt all that could make my life lovely. Could she but see me once! Even the slightest link between us...

Linley rises from his seat and flings himself on his bed in a fit of despair.

LINLEY (cont’d)
But it could not be. Nothing could break down the barriers which Nature had erected between us.

INT. LINLEY’S FLAT. NIGHT AND DAY (B/W, FLASHBACK)
A dishevilled, sleepless Linley pores over his microscope, day and night, spying on the object of his obsession.

INT. ANIMULA’S WORLD. DAY
Animula, oblivious of her observer, does a striptease and bathes herself in a river.

INT. LINLEY’S FLAT. NIGHT (B/W, FLASHBACK)
In the spirit of experiment Linley dims the lamplight shining on the slide and the water droplet.

INT. ANIMULA’S WORLD. TWILIGHT
In the dim light Animula shows signs of distress, with an expression of pain, wringing her hands.

INT. LINLEY’S FLAT. NIGHT (B/W, FLASHBACK)
Linley turns up the gas on the lamp so the light shines strongly.

LINLEY (V.O.)
How I delighted to learn I could have any effect on her, however invisible or anonymous the force.

INT. ANIMULA’S WORLD. DAY
Animula’s environment is flooded with light, an effect which makes her gambol and sing with pleasure.

LINLEY (V.O.)
If science only had the means of magnifying sounds – what carols of happiness would have entranced my ears!

INT. LINLEY’S FLAT. NIGHT (B/W, FLASHBACK)
Linley is turning the lamp up and down, staring through the microscope.

LINLEY (V.O.)
I grew pale and emaciated. My inability to touch or even speak a word to my beloved, I realised, was driving me to distraction.

I concluded that I had developed an exaggerated notion of Animula’s charms because of my seclusion from female society. If I compared her with the flesh and blood women of my own world, this false enchantment would vanish like the dew.

INT. LINLEY’S FLAT. DAY (B/W, FLASHBACK)
Linley looks at a newspaper advertisement, for a celebrated dancer, performing nightly at Niblo’s.

LINLEY (V.O.)
Signora Caradolce. Said to be the most beautiful, the most graceful woman in the world...

INT. THEATRE STALLS. NIGHT (B/W, FLASHBACK)
Linley is sitting among the audience in a small theatre. He waits with anticipation.

The curtain rises.

The backdrop is a crude painting of a woodland scene, like a rough parody of Animula’s home.

The audience around Linley start to applaud with delight.

A tall figure pushes aside the drapes to emerge and dance around the stage, dressed in white muslin.

Linley shrinks into his seat.

The figure onstage is graceful but muscular, and leaps athletically; this is very different from Animula’s dainty caperings.

Linley, hands trembling, puts his opera glasses to his eyes.

We see what he sees, framed by the glasses:

An Amazonian woman, her face harshly painted, smiling grotesquely, lumbers around the stage.
Sweat runs down her face. As her feet hit the floor the scenery shudders.

Linley jumps to his feet, horrified, and runs from the theatre.

(A REPRODUCTION OF CONSTABLE’S THE HAYWAIN IS PROJECTED ON THE BOARD BEHIND HENRY, THE LECTURER)

Now. What I want you to do, is think about how you would describe that scene to a blind person who won’t accept the use of any nouns. I know it’s a situation that probably won’t come up... But it's a very important exercise.

(A REPRODUCTION OF CONSTABLE’S THE HAYWAIN IS PROJECTED ON THE BOARD BEHIND HENRY, THE LECTURER)

Now. What I want you to do, is try and think of a way of describing this scene, from this familiar painting, to a blind person who won’t accept the use of any nouns. I know it’s a situation that probably won’t come up... But it's a very important exercise.

(THERE IS A PAUSE, WHILE HENRY LOOKS BEHIND HIM AT THE BOARD, AND SCRIBBLES HIS OWN SUGGESTIONS ON A PIECE OF PAPER.)

OK, how would we do it. Well, how about, the white... no. The wooden carrying... There was wet... The trotting continued slowly through the wet onrushing... I’m having a few problems with the cart, I must say.

The trotting and the wooden turning continued slowly through the wet onrushing and above was clouded.

Not sure if a blind person would get absolutely the whole picture from that... But the point is, you have from an early age accepted some rules of grammar, and now you are frozen within them. They are hampering your ability to think. You need to loosen up. Grammar is very useful at a certain stage of communication. But there’s only so far you can go with it.

(Claps his hands together happily) We’re making progress! You are becoming a new person. Now. I need a volunteer from the audience.

(PAUSE)

Ah! Everybody sits on their hands. Come on, hands up. Or I’ll just pick someone. OK. You. (points at a plant in the audience who hasn’t put hand up) Come up here, please. (The plant comes up to the front) Now, watch CLOSELY.

[A video sweeping around the interior of a bedroom is projected onto the screen. A tray holding a kettle and cup full of teabags and sugarlumps are visible in the background, and a fire notice on the wall. It is obviously a room in a Bed and Breakfast place, from the dusty valance and cheap, impersonal but fussy ornaments. Some jarring details are lingered on for longer: a cut-up dress, a pile of broken glass, a torn-up newspaper.]

Forgive the somewhat amateur camerawork! Now. (Henry hands the ‘volunteer’ a pointer stick) It’s pretty obvious something is wrong here. Can you point out to me the objects you would use to start your deductions from.

[The volunteer points at the tray with the kettle, and the fire notice]

You seem to be paying attention to rather strange things here. (pause) What do you mean by that? (The volunteer stares back silently) We’re talking about deductive reasoning. We’re talking about selective attention. Focus! You seem to be on some complete other line of enquiry!

(PAUSE)

(HENRY SEEMS DISTURBED. HE STARES AT THE ‘VOLUNTEER’ BALEFULLY) You’ve got a long way to go in developing focused, deductive reasoning. There’s no better way to shrink your brain than to be easily distracted. So what’s your line of enquiry? Fill me in.

VOLUNTEER: It’s not a private room. It’s a bed and breakfast. (She points again at the kettle and the fire notice)

HENRY: The room isn’t the point! Those aren’t clues.

VOLUNTEER: It tells you about the person who lives there.

HENRY: No, it doesn’t! No, it exactly doesn’t do that. Please sit down.

VOLUNTEER: They’re short of money, on their own, down on their luck...

HENRY: Sit down.

VOLUNTEER: Also, what institution are you affiliated with? Academically?

HENRY: Er...

VOLUNTEER: Thought so!

HENRY: SIT... DOWN.

(VOLUNTEER RETURNS TO THE AUDIENCE AND SITS DOWN)

HENRY IS TRYING TO RECOVER HIMSELF.
I’d like another volunteer, a better volunteer, please.

(POINTS TO SECOND VOLUNTEER WITH HER HAND UP)
You.

2nd VOLUNTEER: Can I ask you a question?

HENRY: It’s not time for questions yet. Perhaps I should talk you through the deductive process.

2ND VOLUNTEER: What happened to Mrs A? In the case study you were talking about earlier?

HENRY: I can’t answer your question.

2ND VOLUNTEER: Was it Mrs A in the garden?

HENRY: Why are you asking that?

2ND VOLUNTEER: I’m deducing...

HENRY: You’re deducing the wrong things! You’re looking at the wrong things! Look at the board! You might as well start reading the furniture.

2ND VOLUNTEER: (pointing at the board) Whose room is it?

HENRY: This is a reconstruction. The setting itself is unimportant.

1st VOLUNTEER: (stands up) It’s Miss B’s room!

HENRY: It isn’t! It isn’t Miss B’s room.

HENRY raises a hand for silence.

We’ve gone a little... off-piste. (HE LOOKS BEHIND HIM AT THE BOARD, WHICH STILL HAS THE B&B ROOM PROJECTED ON TO IT) You can’t deduce anything from that.

(THE IMAGE DISAPPEARS)

1st VOLUNTEER: (standing up) I want to know if it’s Miss B’s room in that picture, because if so I think I spotted a clue.

HENRY: The Q and A session comes after...

2nd VOLUNTEER: Clue to what?

1st VOLUNTEER: Her disappearance. In Australia.

HENRY: Ladies and gentlemen! Please take your seats! Sherlock Holmes should not be our cognitive role model! He’s a caricature.

1st VOLUNTEER: It’s obviously got to be this guy’s room (pointing at Henry). Isn’t it? (to Henry)

HENRY: Sssh.

1st VOLUNTEER: You have no academic affiliations, so no lab or anything. You have to assemble your research material in your room.

2nd VOLUNTEER: What qualifications does he have, I wonder.

1st VOLUNTEER: And where does Miss B come into it? Old girlfriend?

HENRY: No!

2nd VOLUNTEER: Sister.

1st VOLUNTEER: Sister!

2nd VOLUNTEER: And you were hiding in the garden, wearing short trousers so fairly young... Am I right? Am I on the right track?

HENRY: This isn’t the point! It isn’t important. Back to your exercises!

2nd VOLUNTEER: Aaah! I’m getting it!

1st VOLUNTEER: Mrs A is the woman in the garden and Mrs A is...

2nd VOLUNTEER: The mother!

1st VOLUNTEER: Bingo!

2nd VOLUNTEER: Go back to that photo. The girl and her travelling companions. From earlier.

1st VOLUNTEER: Of course! That holds the key. I wasn’t really looking.

2nd VOLUNTEER: He warned you to pay attention!

1st VOLUNTEER: He did.

2nd VOLUNTEER: There was a man in the background. I’m sure of it.

1st VOLUNTEER: So what happened to Mr and Mrs A?

HENRY: I can’t tell you.

1st VOLUNTEER: Don’t know or won’t say?

HENRY: It isn’t important.

1st VOLUNTEER: (has got hold of the slide projector) It’s alright! I’ll talk you through it. I’ve got it!

(Slides that have appeared earlier start to be projected, in a new order)

1st VOLUNTEER: The girl checks into a hostel (slide of a rundown building) run by a couple of rough types (slide of suspicious-looking couple). She’s on her own by this stage, because she’s fallen out with her best friend (picture of hard-faced girl). It’s a lowrent sort of place (slide of the B and B interior) and she gets lonely, understandably, so she’s more vulnerable than usual to advances by strangers (picture of the group of travellers). Australians are friendly, everyone knows that, so where’s the harm in being friendly back? It’s this guy, at the back. He’s older than the others. He seems out of place, because he’s in working clothes. In fact, look! The sun is shining, and yet he’s wearing a heavy coat...

HENRY: This is all wrong!

2nd VOLUNTEER: Why don’t you want our help?

1st VOLUNTEER: It’s like he doesn’t want the truth about his sister to come out.

2nd VOLUNTEER: And why could that be?

1st VOLUNTEER: Go back to that B and B room. (slide comes up)
Look at the Haywain on the wall there. Next to it, you can just see. Picture of a girl, hanging...

HENRY: For God’s sake! (He rushes up and grabs the 1st VOLUNTEER by the neck. Everybody freezes)

2nd VOLUNTEER: You’ve hit a nerve there.

(slide comes up with closeup of the picture, which is a drawing of a girl whose limbs are changing into branches and roots)

HENRY: (letting go) That is not a picture of a girl hanging. If you had any education, you would know that that is a representation of a nymph transformed into a tree, weeping tears of amber into the river.

1st VOLUNTEER: What nymph?

HENRY: Just a nymph.

3rd VOLUNTEER: (an authoritative old professor) Aha! (coming up on stage) Now, this is rather interesting in the circumstances. And rather revealing. Because this is not any nymph, this is one of Phaethon’s sisters. (shouldering HENRY off the platform) And Phaethon’s sisters were turned into trees because of his overarching ambition. He’s the one that stole the chariot of the sun and rode it into the sea. Burnt all the Ethiopians black! As a consequence his grieving sisters were turned into trees.

2nd VOLUNTEER: So what does this mean?

1st VOLUNTEER: This guy’s ambition led to the death of his sister! Now it’s haunting him. It’s all in the picture. You just have to look closely enough.

HENRY: This isn’t about my sister! This isn’t about me at all! Why bring me into it?

2nd VOLUNTEER: You brought yourself into it.

3rd VOLUNTEER: For instance, I would like to question what institution you are affiliated with. And what are your qualifications? Such ignorance of classical mythology suggests some educational gaps that I for one find highly disturbing in someone setting themselves up as an instructor.

HENRY: (clutches his head and staggers about the stage) This is what I’m talking about! You’re all trying to make everything fit into what you already know! What’s the point of that?

2nd VOLUNTEER: He’s very defensive when you get him on the subject of qualifications.

3rd VOLUNTEER: Yes, the implications of that have not escaped me.

1st VOLUNTEER: I’d like to go back to this business of the sister.

3rd VOLUNTEER: (starting to count the audience) I mean, if everyone in this audience has paid, what, seven pounds each? That adds up to...

1st VOLUNTEER: Never mind that!

3rd VOLUNTEER: Young man, we are talking fraud here. Of an intellectual kind, at the very least!

1st VOLUNTEER: It’s hardly as important, as the fact that this man killed his sister!

(Pause)

3rd VOLUNTEER: What do you base this accusation on?

1st VOLUNTEER: Let’s go back. To this garden he keeps talking about.

2nd VOLUNTEER: Yes, I was hoping someone would explain that.