Scene I: Virgil Appears to Dante
It transpires, after ten minutes of who the fuck are you and leave me the fuck alone, that Dante and Virgil were once the closest of kid mates, at their first school together, back when their parents lived a road away from each other in Lewisham.
Days and days and months and years of happiness and laughs peel back into their minds as memories of BMX rides, Lego, Power Rangers, paddling pools, barbeques and ice creams, once so distant and forgotten, so close you could smell the warm cut grass in the muggy summer air and hear the distant, echoed sounds of Wimbledon on the telly.
When Virgil's parents moved to north London the nine year olds never saw each other again, until now. What the fuck is he doing living here in this arse end of the world. What the fuck are the chances of meeting here, now, like this?
Then Virgil explains.
It's Bea who's sent him. They'd never met till she found his spirit and gave Vigil a chance to seek redemption by helping Dante now in his lost wilderness.
Virgil was a loner when they were kids and he stayed that way until he died. Shunning the crowd at school and dropping out of college early to pursue a lucrative but dangerous line in shotting weed and pills to a jilted generation of wealthy middle class clubbers who'd discovered "Aceeed!" and house music, Virgil was permanently riding high, dropped suspension, blacked out windows, heavy bass tin in the boot laden with secret pouches of gear, cash, cash, cash and more fucking cash, shouting "lager, lager, lager...".
Then a stash he was waiting on wasn't there one day when his main supplier was strung up and gutted by a new breed of eastern Europeans fresh off the fucking boat from Shitislava. It was a Thursday and he had about fifteen grand's worth of weekend business to clear before Saturday and he'd be fucked if he was going to lose out on that.
He rang someone who knew someone who rang someone and he got an address. The price was good and the quality was all there, no trouble at all, in like Flynn and he was off, stashed up to the nines, so fucking laden there was a green vapour trail behind the Merc all the way down the south circular, music thumping from the back, quick toot for the way home, sun was shining.
Never once realised he was being followed.
He gets back to his lock up, drives in, shutter down, safe as fuck. Lights on scales, bags, extractor fan, tunes, spliff, spun round as a power drill screams through the heavy gun metal lock on the door. He watched in slow motion, the colour draining from his half-cast body, sick starting to rise up into his throat.
The dealer had him followed. He was hemmed in on all sides like a cornered rat and they were quick and quiet in killing him. No need to draw too much attention when there's fifteen grand's worth of fucking stash to recover.
They sat huddled from the rain in the recess of a stairwell, Dante half cut between shock and disbelief but glued to the thought that Bea had sent him, that he had seen her, spoken to her, agreed to take him to her.
As Virgil paused, distant in the memory of the moment, Dante rises into the rain and offers his hand, beckoning, pleading, ordering Virgil to lead him to her.
Above the twisted railings, bent open across the rusted corner of the estate playground, a graff on the concrete wall reads:
"ABANDON ALL HOPE, YOU WHO ENTER HERE"
He knows she lies beyond there somewhere, waiting for him, smiling, her dead hands clutching at the few drops of his blood in her locket. He stares up at Virgil and the two men lever into the playground and walk off into the night.