- According to the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale, the three most stressful experiences in life are the death of a spouse, divorce, and imprisonment. Moving house is only 32nd on the list. But anything could happen in the last ten minutes.
- Talkative Spike from the Handle Me Gently removals firm comes to help May and Viktor move house, unaware that they are not what they seem. Forty minutes earlier May had discovered the real house owner Natasha was having an affair with her husband Charles and taken steps to thwart their plan to get rid of her. Carnage results.—don @ minifie-1
- Spike, from the 'Handle Me Gently' removals firm, arrives at No 9 where he is met by May, answering to the name of Mrs Falsham, the owner. May takes Spike into the kitchen where they discuss the move, but she appears distracted and nervous. Viktor, whom May introduces as her husband, comes into the room wearing oven gloves and a pink dressing gown, and together they tell Spike that this is a bad time and ask him to come back later. As Spike starts to protest, Percy, an old man who has some form of dementia and thinks that he is Andrew Lloyd Webber, comes down from upstairs and starts complaining, when blood suddenly begins to spew out of his mouth and he collapses over Viktor. Spike goes into the downstairs bathroom to fetch a towel to clean up, but sees the dead body of a man on the toilet and recoils in horror, knocking over a rolled-up carpet which causes it to unroll, revealing another dead body, this time that of a woman. Viktor advances on Spike, oven gloves outstretched, but May runs a screwdriver she happens to be holding through the back of Viktor's neck. As Viktor collapses there is a moment of stunned silence, then May says, "I can explain".
--- Ten minutes earlier ---
Viktor, half-dressed, is in the kitchen making a cup of cocoa to which he adds a liberal dose of rat poison. He brings this upstairs to Percy, who is lying in bed, thinks Viktor is his son and not Julian Lloyd Webber after all, and vaguely recalls he has a daughter as well. Viktor tells Percy to drink his cocoa before it gets cold. While they are talking the doorbell rings so Viktor goes downstairs to answer it, grabbing a pink dressing gown that happens to be lying on a box on the landing so as not to answer the door half-dressed. It's May, who is in fact a neighbour, coming to return a screwdriver she borrowed. May tells Viktor she has heard about him by reputation and asks after Natasha, but they are interrupted by Percy, crying in agony upstairs. Viktor goes up to find him lying on the floor, saying that something was wrong with the cocoa, while May takes advantage of being left alone downstairs by searching frantically for a voice recorder which she finds and hides on her person. Viktor sees the removal van arriving, so runs downstairs again, points a gun at May and tells her to do exactly as he says. As the removal van draws up to the house, he puts on an oven glove to conceal the gun in his hand.
--- Ten minutes earlier ---
Hugo, the estate agent, comes to the door and lets himself in with a cheery "hello". He goes into the kitchen to see Viktor standing by an armchair. Hugo assumes Viktor is a potential buyer and talks up the property, mentions that they are redecorating, points to a patch of wet paint that happens to be on the wall and says the house will be sold by the time it dries. Hugo invites Viktor to take a look around, but follows him about, being a nuisance and obviously desperate to sell the house. Eventually, back in the kitchen, Viktor tells Hugo he will buy the house just to shut him up, whereupon Hugo is so grateful that he tells Viktor the owner will throw in something extra to seal the deal and whips off an armchair cover to reveal the dead body of a woman, shot through the head. Hugo, horrified, recognises the woman as Natasha, the real house owner, and Viktor pulls out a gun and wounds him. Hugo and Viktor struggle, but Hugo manages to get away and shut himself in the downstairs bathroom. Viktor demands that terrified Hugo comes out, then notices a bit of bathroom rug protruding from under the door and jerks it, causing Hugo to lose balance and hit his head hard on the basin which kills him. Viktor heaves Hugo's body on to the toilet seat, then realises he has blood all over his trousers, so he has to take them off. He then goes to deal with Natasha's body, rolling it in a carpet which he stands up in the hallway outside the bathroom. No sooner has he finished than he is interrupted by Percy calling from upstairs and goes up to find him in the bath. Percy thinks Viktor is Julian Lloyd Webber and asks to be helped out of the bath and into bed. Viktor complies, and tells Percy he will bring a nice cup of cocoa to warm him up.
--- Ten minutes earlier ---
Natasha is helping Percy into the bath. Once Percy is settled, she tries to explain to him that she and Charles are moving to Portugal and putting Percy into a home. When Percy asks why, she explains that it is better that she and Charles just disappear. Afterwards Natasha goes into her bedroom and calls Hugo, reminding him of his imminent appointment with a potential buyer and that she will let the buyer into the house if he arrives before Hugo does. She sees a pink dressing gown lying around, so folds it up and puts it on a box on the landing before going back downstairs.
Meanwhile Viktor has silently let himself into the house and takes out a gun. Finding nobody downstairs, he goes into the kitchen, puts the gun on the stove, looks around, and is in the process of removing a cover from an armchair when he is surprised by Natasha, who mistakes him for the removal man and asks him to help bubble-wrap the breakables. Fortunately Natasha doesn't notice the gun, which Viktor picks up at first opportunity, not realising that the stove is on and the gun is extremely hot. Viktor yelps in pain and drops the gun which falls into a bucket of water that happens to be next to the stove, but after Natasha helps him run his hand under cold water, he collects the gun, dries it off while Natasha's back is turned, then shoots Natasha in the head. Natasha falls back dead into the armchair, leaving a splatter of blood on the wall behind her. Viktor tries to clean this off, making even more of a mess, but he sees a paint roller and tray and uses this to paint it over. He is interrupted by Hugo's arrival and just has time to throw the cover back over the armchair to conceal Natasha's body before Hugo comes into the kitchen.
--- Ten minutes earlier ---
Natasha is using a bucket of water to clean a floor stain just outside the downstairs bathroom door, but the stain won't come off so she pulls the rug from inside the bathroom to conceal it. The doorbell rings, so Natasha puts the bucket into the kitchen next to the stove and goes to answer it. It's May, her neighbour, who looks upset and confides in Natasha that she thinks that Charles, May's husband, is having an affair, citing business trips abroad from which he fails to return with any souvenirs, and a note, obviously not meant for her to read, which she found in his belongings. Natasha tries to reassure May that there's nothing to worry about, but they are interrupted by Percy calling from upstairs, ready for his bath. May says she has to go home to await a delivery and Natasha tells May to hurry off and make sure she doesn't miss it, before going upstairs to attend to Percy.
May does not leave straight away, however. Instead she sneaks into a room as soon as Natasha goes upstairs and calls Charles from Natasha's phone, pretending to be Natasha by playing back excerpts of the conversation they just had which she secretly recorded with a hidden voice recorder. This not only confirms her suspicions that Natasha is the one Charles is having an affair with; but also reveals that Charles and Natasha are about to run off together and have arranged alibis for themselves - in Natasha's case an appointment with her estate agent - while a hit-man calls round to kill May while she is home alone, awaiting her delivery. May swiftly comes up with a plan: she takes a screwdriver from a toolbox and then quietly leaves the house, but forgetting to take her voice recorder with her. She goes to the front gateway and undoes the top screw of the number 6 that is shown there, so that it swings down and looks like a number 9. Then she goes back down the lane to her own house, just before Viktor, the hit-man, arrives on his motorbike. Viktor pulls up by the gateway, sees the number 9, and turns into the drive.
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