Scene VI: Corruption
Dante and Virgil climb higher and higher together, all the while Dante wondering when or if he'll ever find Bea in this hell hole, how could she be anywhere like here? Memories of the night she died filter in and out of his head mixed with images of his mother and his broken father.
He visualises the party on that night, people everywhere, Bea at one end of the room chatting to her girlfriends and him at the other making his way towards her. He can see the look of shock and panic on people's faces as a stampede swells in the corridor and Bea looks over at him frightened before she's swept out of the door and into the crush of a sea of freaked out people.
And that's the last time he saw her conscious. When he got to her she was limp on the floor, eyes closed, a terrible shade of light brown and blue, a pool of dark sticky blood forming underneath her. When he went to lift her to him she was cold, he smelled her clean, washed hair and the rest is blank.
From a floor above someone is speaking loudly, lecturing through a megaphone. Dante and Virgil round the stairs to find a smart-suited man and his female assistant, clipboard in hand, standing amongst bags and bags of festering garbage, rotting carpets, old junk and general crap.
Mandelson is the local MP for south Greenwich and Price is his erstwhile assistant. The two of them proudly proclaim the great and good that they've done for the tenants and community of this thriving neighbourhood, Mandelson triumphantly marching over the piles of garbage like a warrior surveying a conquered battlefield.
Price complements him on his great and glorious work and urges the bemused Dante and Virgil, the only people watching this ridiculous scene unfold, to keep voting for Mandelson and Price, the people's choice, as if they were at the front row of an enormous and adoring crowd.
This time it's Virgil who's had enough of this bullshit. He launches into a tirade against corrupt politicians, false promises and shifting goalposts. Look around you at the shit pile you've both created, look what legacy you've left behind, knee deep in your own stinking effluent, blind to the reality of life and hardship on the real front line.
Dante jumps in and delivers a scathing account of where Mandelson's dreams and hopes left him and his family, where they left Bea, emptying her life through a knife wound on to the dirty floor of some high rise party. What part of hope and vision has he got from their great and glorious work? Fuck you!
Dante and Virgil make to jump the two politicians but they dive into the sea of rubbish and old crap around them, disappearing like Olympic swimmers into a 50 metre pool.
Typical, once they proudly cause all the shit in the name of progress they're gone before they can be held accountable. Dante beckons Virgil to move on, this is a fight they didn't come here to take on and there's no chance of winning it. Virgil agrees, remembering Bea and his promise to her...