Youth Murder Mystery:The Girl with Two Faces

I’ve written a number of murder mysteries, and this was for performance by a youth group. Here are the opening scenes. For the full text and performance permissions, please contact me via the ‘Contact’ page.The Girl with Two Faces

Cast list

DS IRVINE, the investigating officer

Police officers and scene of crime specialists

Forensics officers

Reporter 1

Reporter 2

Other reporters

CHELSEA Peterson, the dead girl

MARGO Peterson, the dead girl’s mother

ANNIE Peterson, Chelsea’s younger sister

GRETA SINCLAIR, their neighbour

TRACY, leader of the girl gang

IMOGEN before Chelsea, the newest member of the gang

MAIRI, Tracy’s second in command

SHANNON

BARBARA: the manageress of the cafe where Chelsea worked

HAYLEY, her friend

MRS ANDERSON, Chelsea’s Maths teacher

LAUREN, Chelsea’s classmate

The Girl with Two Faces

SCENE 1: 

The audience enters a crime scene. The body is lying face-down, in a place where she could have fallen from the balcony.  There’s tape around her, and white boiler-suited forensic specialists examining the body. Cameras flash and bright lights shine down on the scene. There’s a great stain of blood on the back of her jacket / top.

There are police officers everywhere, directing the audience forwards to their seats, with phrases like, ‘If you could move on,  madam, this is a crime scene’ ‘This way, sir, move on, please’ ‘Sorry, madam, we can’t give any information at present. Move on, please.’ ‘This is a crime scene, sir, move on please.’

There are also reporters, who are trying to get shots of the body. As the audience come in, they move forwards with them, asking questions like, ‘Did you see anything, sir?’ ‘Do you know who the dead girl is?’ ‘Were you a witness, madam?’

Up in the balcony, the GIRL GANG are looking down, watching, like ravens – a sinister bunch, dressed in black Goth style clothes.

At the long desk, the cafe people, BARBARA and HAYLEY, are watching and talking softly about what’s going on – they’re horrified and upset, but don’t know the identity of the body yet. They could ask the audience questions like, ‘Who is it? Can you see?

The audience come forward to chairs set out rows, facing the library entrance. Once they are all in, the reporters block the audience’s view while the cast set up the PETERSON family’s sitting room: a ‘sofa’, with a little table beside it, a lamp. MARGO Peterson, the dead girl’s mother, is sitting on the sofa. Margo’s daughter, ANNIE, is standing at the side.

DS IRVINE: Move away, please. Give the family some peace.

REPORTER 1: Can you confirm the identity of the dead girl?

DS IRVINE: We’ll be making a statement in due course.

REPORTER 2: Can you give us a photo of her?

REPORTER 1: How’s her mother taking the news?

DS IRVINE: How would you expect? Go on, clear off.

Most of the reporters go, muttering lines like. ‘We’re just doing our job’ and ‘So much for police being helpful’ Their next job can be as members of the gang, or customers in the cafe. Reporters 1 and 2 stay put, but to the side.

GRETA SINCLAIR enters and goes up to DS Irvine.

DS IRVINE: Please move on, madam.

GRETA: I’m Margo’s neighbour. Greta Sinclair.

DS IRVINE: Sorry, madam.

GRETA: A time like this, she needs her friends around her. I know how it feels ... I lost my man five years ago this month. A heart attack it was, and that sudden – I couldn’t believe it.

SCENE 2:

She goes into the house. We can see by Margo and Annie’s reactions that she’s not totally welcome. Margo covers this better than Annie.

GRETA: Now, Annie, you go and make your mother a cup of tea.

MARGO shakes her head.

GRETA: It’ll do you good.   to Annie  Put two sugars in it.

ANNIE muttered rebelliously as she goes out: She doesna tak sugar.

MARGO: This doesn’t feel real. Chelsea – my little girl – I can’t take it in.

GRETA: Death’s always a shock. I mind when my Harry died ...

MARGO: She can’t be dead! She was here, just an hour ago! She was here ... breaks down and cries. Greta puts an arm round her.

GRETA:  There, there, Margo, you let it all out.

MARGO pulls away from her, and speaks angrily.

MARGO: She was a good lass! Never in any trouble... she did well at the school...

ANNIE comes in with the tea. We see from her face, and Greta’s, that this isn’t true.

MARGO: She was asked, just this week, to go to Aberdeen for the Maths challenge ...

ANNIE: Mam ... She realises this isn’t the time to say anything more. Here’s dy tay, Mam.

MARGO: And she never stole anything in her life!

GRETA: I never said that, exactly ...

MARGO: Just because she gave you a bit of lip sometimes.

GRETA: Lip! She was a cheeky wee besom.

MARGO: Shoplifting, you said! My Chelsea would never do that.

There is a camera flash from outside – Reporters 1 and 2 taking photos through the window. Annie runs to the window.

ANNIE: Lave wis alane!

MARGO: Don’t they understand what we’re feeling?

GRETA: Ghouls, that’s what they are.

ANNIE: Try tae ignore dem, Mam.

GRETA: Don’t care about your feelings, they just want to sell their papers. to Annie You look after your mum. I’ll go out and talk to them.

She exits.

ANNIE: Mrs Nosy-parker.

MARGO: It wasn’t true, what she said about Chelsea ... it wasn’t.

ANNIE: Coorse it wisna, Mam.

Greta comes up to the reporters.

GRETA: Now, now, leave poor Mrs Peterson alone. Such an awful loss for her. Chelsea was a lovely girl.

REPORTER 1: Chelsea? Was that her name?

REPORTER 2: How old was she?

REPORTER 1: Can you tell us about her?

GRETA: Well, she was fourteen. They moved here five years ago. I can tell you that exactly, because it was just before my Harry died – Harry was my husband, and a good man. He died awful sudden from a heart attack.

REPORTER 1: Who’s they? What family did Chelsea have?

GRETA: There’s Margo, their mother, and the two girls, Chelsea and Annie. Annie fairly looked up to her big sister. She’ll miss her something awful, just like I miss my Harry. He had pills, that he was supposed to keep in his pocket, but he laid them on the dresser... He couldn’t reach them.

REPORTER 1: So you knew the family well?

GRETA: I’ve never had a day’s happiness since.

REPORTER 2: Tell us about Chelsea.

GRETA: Well,  Chelsea was a good girl, but if you ask me, she was keeping the wrong company... those girls up there ...

SCENE 3 

Lights up on the girl gang up in the balcony. They’re looking down at the body below them.

IMOGEN: Is she dead?

MAIRI: No, Imogen, she’s just pretending.

SHANNON: Don’t be stupid.

IMOGEN: Well, she might be just injured.

TRACY: Oh, quit your arguing. We need to think about this.

MAIRI: She’s just had an accident, Trace.

IMOGEN: Fallen from the bridge.

SHANNON: If we want your input, we’ll ask for it.

TRACY: Shut it, I said.

MAIRI: But Trace –

TRACY: Look, Mairi, there’s police everywhere, and those white forensic suits. Does that look like an accident to you?

IMOGEN: Maybe somebody pushed her.

TRACY: From up here. And whose hang-out is this?

MAIRI: Who’s going to get the blame?

IMOGEN: But we were nowhere near!

TRACY: Oh, yeah? How do you know when it happened?

IMOGEN: I don’t! I don’t know anything about it!

SHANNON: But you just said ...

IMOGEN: I don’t know anything, Shannon, I told you! I wasn’t here.

MAIRI: You didn’t like her much.

SHANNON: She was friendlier with us. Had no time for babies.

MAIRI: You’re still last in, first out.

IMOGEN: I’m not last in. She was. I brought her to join us.

MAIRI: So you wouldn’t be the baby any more.

SHANNON: But you still were. We liked her better.

TRACY: Shut it!  They go silent. Right. Let’s think this out. The police are going to be buzzing round like flies. They might find something at her house.

IMOGEN: The stuff we nicked from Boots?

MAIRI: That won’t link her to us.

TRACY: No.

SHANNON: She had good ideas. She was clever.

IMOGEN: She’d’ve been a good leader.

TRACY: grabs her menacingly I’m your leader. Imogen nods, and Tracy lets her go. Too clever for her own good.

SHANNON: Was that why you had that row with her?

TRACY: Forget that, or you’ll be sorry. Let’s go and talk money.

MAIRI: What money? Where?

TRACY: Let’s pay a visit to that cafe she worked at.