RUPERT. I just can’t believe it.

AIDAN. I know.

RUPERT. No but I mean, fourteen?

AIDAN. I know. I know.

RUPERT. Cos I’m not being funny but –

AIDAN. What?

RUPERT. Well, sorry, but have you seen the balcony on it?

,

AIDAN stares at him.

AIDAN. Get out.

RUPERT. What?

AIDAN. Seriously. I won’t have that. What’s wrong with you? She’s a child, go and slam your head in a door.

RUPERT. Sorry. Sorry but why am I / getting the –

AIDAN. You were supposed to be watching Sam, mentoring his, you have to protect people, if you don’t protect them this is what happens!

RUPERT. This is my fault? Mate, ten minutes ago you were basically rubbing yourself off to her, suddenly her tits are out of bounds? Talking to me / like that, what’s your damage?

SAM begins to groan loudly and continually.

AIDAN. Of course they are, can you hear your – she’s fourteen, my ‘damage’? My damage is we’re all about to get fired. My damage is you’re a stuck-up little prick who thinks he’s somehow / above what is happening here –

RUPERT pulls out a Dictaphone from his pocket, switches it on, holds it in AIDAN’s face.

RUPERT. Go on. Go on. Come on, mate, bring it on –

AIDAN. Get that out of my, what is that?

RUPERT. That’s my fucking dossier, mate, you pushed me to this, I’ve worked here three fucking years, you take every chance you can to shit on me, from a height, just cos you think being born in a coal hole somehow gives you / the right to –

AIDAN grabs the Dictaphone from RUPERT, throws it down.

AIDAN. Get the fuck out of my office, you fucking Eton mess!

RUPERT runs out as CHARLOTTE looks in.

CHARLOTTE. Aidan, her father’s on line two.

AIDAN. What’s his name?

CHARLOTTE. Mr Bradshaw.

AIDAN. Mr Bradshaw. Where do they live?

CHARLOTTE. Manchester.

AIDAN. Will he come to London?

CHARLOTTE. I’ll ask.

AIDAN. Great just just just (Sam, be quiet) just keep him talking, give me a, give me a moment to think, Sam, mate, please!

CHARLOTTE runs out. SAM stops groaning and starts to cry.

Wait, Charlotte?

She runs in again.

I’m going to need you to book a, a hotel (shut up, Sam) somewhere really, a suite, just, blow the hospitality budget, do you mind?

CHARLOTTE. On it.

He gestures to the Liverpool FC flag on the wall.

AIDAN. Take the Liverpool flag down. And I need a photograph of a girl.

CHARLOTTE. Topless?

AIDAN. No, not – fucking hell, Charlotte, a fourteen-, a fifteen-year-old girl, with all her clothes on, in a garden or something, you know, bucolic. Call the picture library.

CHARLOTTE. Right.

AIDAN. Print it. Frame it. Put it on my desk.

CHARLOTTE. Okay.

AIDAN. Charlotte? I’m really sorry about this.

CHARLOTTE. I don’t care.