Leavin', again...

Flying to Manchester for a packing job then down to London for another one. Total of 5 days work but staying 10 days because it's cheaper than flying me back and forth and I wouldn't do that, anyway. 

I took this photo almost eight years ago, when I hand-carried an original sheet of Handel's music to a client. I couldn't sleep so went wandering and happened onto this shot just as dawn was approaching. You can see Canary Wharf in the distance past the towers.

I'll be staying a couple days out by City Airport, on the other side of Canary Wharf. It factors into a screenplay I wrote years ago titled Marked for Death.

This is the synopsis:

Ben Forrier, a young soldier from Belfast, arrives in London to find the man who murdered his parents and his wife. The elder Forrier was a bank manager who discovered his bank was laundering arms and drug money for the IRA, so he and Ben's mother and Ben's new wife were killed by a car bomb. Now Ben plans to destroy his father's murderer by having the man kill him and be held responsible for his death.

His focus is on Nicholas Glyde, a notorious drug dealer he traced to an country home just outside London. Glyde's wife died years ago, leaving him with two children -- Aura, a lovely young woman now attending university, and Ric, a troubled teenager.

While staying with his mother's half brother, Marc, Ben arranges to meet Aura and Ric; he wants them to unknowingly help him in his plan. But he begins to falls in love with Aura and wonders if his life might have meaning, again.

Before he can rearrange his plans, Ben is almost killed in a gunfight, signaling Glyde knows who he is. So his fate is set. He uses Aura to get into Glyde's compound, plants evidence to suggest he was beaten and killed, there, and sets himself up to be taken prisoner.

But Glyde not only captures Ben but removes the evidence he left behind. Then he takes the young man out on a boat down The Thames to be tortured and killed.

Sensing his plan has failed, Ben manages to escape and now plans to just kill Glyde. Only he begins to see clues that he may be out to wreak vengeance on the wrong man. That if could be he's being used in a plot to kill not only Glyde but Aura and Ric, and blame him.

A realization that may be too late to save two innocent people who are marked for death.

I really like how it turned out, but got no interest from anyone for it so it got put away. Like all my scripts finally did. Still, it'll be fun to see if I got some of the locations right -- like City Airport and the marina just past it.

Of course, a lot has changed in the 16 years since I wrote it.