Back Butcher
Chapters (17)
  1. Cover
  2. 2
  3. 4
  4. 1
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. Prologue
  10. Scene 1
  11. Scene 2
  12. Scene 3
  13. Scene 4
  14. 1
  15. 2
  16. 3
  17. 4

HAMILTON: I’m sure these arguments all make sense in your head. But from a legal standpoint, it’s all hearsay and conjecture.

Elena and Hamilton glare at each other.

ELENA: Let’s Google him. Džibrilovo.

LAMB: That’s an idea.

Lamb goes to the computer on his desk.

LAMB: Okay.

ELENA: D-Ž-I-B-R-

LAMB: Slow down.

ELENA: D-Ž-I-B-R-I-L-O-V-O.

LAMB: Not exactly a phonetic language, is it? (beat) Josef Dzee … What she said. Known as the Butcher. (looks at Hamilton) She’s not making that part up.

ELENA: Are there photographs of him?

LAMB: Hold on … (beat) Well fuck me.

ELENA: It looks like him, doesn’t it?

LAMB: Nope.

*ELENA: What!?

*HAMILTON: See?

ELENA: (to Lamb) It doesn’t?

LAMB: I’m sorry. It doesn’t look like him. (points to Hamilton) It looks like him.

HAMILTON: … What?

Lamb turns the screen to show Elena and Hamilton.

ELENA: Hello.

Lamb and Elena turn to Hamilton.

HAMILTON: The features are similar, I’ll grant you …

ELENA: Similar?

HAMILTON: Look, yes, okay? It looks a little bit like me … (off Lamb’s look) It’s not … That’s not so crazy if you take into account that my family’s from Lavinia.

LAMB: So you lied to me?

HAMILTON: No, I didn’t lie –

LAMB: You said your parents were from Birmingham.

HAMILTON: My adoptive parents, yes.

LAMB: Oh. So you weren’t, de facto, lying?

HAMILTON: I left the country when I was very young.

LAMB: You’re related to him?

HAMILTON: We’re third or fourth cousins, something like that. I met him once when I was a kid, I think.

LAMB: So this is Josef Dzee-bree …

ELENA: Džibrilovo.

HAMILTON: (nods) Yes.

Lamb exhales.

HAMILTON: Look, I don’t think that he’s –

ELENA: Don’t you dare!

HAMILTON: Let me finish!

ELENA: I will not if it’s –

HAMILTON: Will you shut up?

LAMB: You two are giving me a headache. (to Elena) Let him finish, will you?

HAMILTON: All I’m saying is that, I know he was a soldier in the war. I don’t know if he was high-ranking or / not, but –

ELENA: A general, actually.

HAMILTON: Well, maybe. That’s not my point.

ELENA: (to Lamb) He ran a concentration camp, where –

HAMILTON: Allegedly.

ELENA: Excuse me?

HAMILTON: He’s accused of that crime, not convicted of it.

ELENA: Spoken as a true patriot.

HAMILTON: Spoken as a lawyer, actually.

ELENA: And was it as a lawyer that you were so insistent on driving him to the hospital yourself? (beat) I don’t think you’d’ve ever seen them again, Inspector.

LAMB: Is that true?

HAMILTON: It is not. He’s in danger here.

*LAMB: Here?

*ELENA: In a police station?

HAMILTON: There is a group of, of, people, they call themselves the Fjurioji[18], the Furies.

JOSEF: Da![19]

Everyone turns to Josef.