by Nikki Attree
Jack follows the pair as they make their way towards the edge of the Heath. The dog-walker is so self-absorbed that it’s easy for him to take a few photos of them unnoticed. He thinks about following them to see where the dog lives, but instead of crossing the road they unexpectedly turn onto the footpath that runs along the Heath’s perimeter. Just as Jack is about to give up stalking them and go back to look for another possible victim, they stop beside a heavy wooden gate with barbed wire above and signs warning of security cameras and a fierce dog.
“Ha that’s a joke, he’s not exactly a Rottweiler” thinks Jack as the girl takes out a key, unlocks the gate, and drags the dog through. Jack has just enough time to get a glimpse of the impressive garden and an amazing-looking house.
There’s a shout from someone working in the garden: “hey Cheryl, you lazy bitch, the boss told us that she doesn’t want us to use that door. Remember? It’s supposed to be kept shut at all times cos she’s worried about the security risk from the low-lifes on the Heath. So next time, come round the front OK?”
Jack is intrigued now. Such an enormous house backing straight onto the Heath must be worth an absolute fortune. He’s a bit wary of possible CCTV cameras, but there are none visible, and he reckons that the sign is probably just another deterrent, so he finds a bit of a gap in the hedge and snaps a few pics on his camera. Judging by the scale of this place he might just have found their next target, although prising the pooch away from the dog-walker’s clutches may be a bit tricky.
Feeling pleased with his morning’s work he returns to base and tells his partner about their possible new victim, showing him the photos on his phone. Harry is mildly interested but, as always, impatient to cut to the chase ...
“Looks promising Jack. So when can we make the snatch then?”
“Well, as I keep telling you ‘Arry mate, it’s all about the preparation. I’ll have to stake out the house a bit more and get savy with the dog-walker’s routine. We’ll need to distract her to get the dog away. Or maybe we’ll have to nick it from the garden. Just be patient and give me time to make a plan, OK mate?”
* * *
It’s lunchtime, and Jack is walking along Stoke Newington High Street on his way to the pub. As he passes the ‘Pawesome’ clinic he realises that he really does miss having a dog next to him, and he experiences another stab of unwelcome emotion. He glances in the window though, to check if there are any cute animals, and to see if the ‘bootiful’ lady with dreadlocks might be there.
There aren’t, and she isn’t, so he decides to pop in to the internet cafe instead. As he walks in he’s pleasantly surprised to see her sitting at one of the computers. Maybe this is his lucky day after all.
"Hello again. Annie isn’t it? How's Sparkle doing?"
She turns abruptly, surprised to hear her cat's name.
"Oh hi there. You’re the owner of the dog that threw up on my boots, aren’t you?"
“Yep, guilty as charged. I’m really sorry about that" Jack says contritely.
“That's OK, you’re forgiven” Annie smiles back. “Well, Sparkle is on the mend now, and how is Angus?”
“He’s much better thanks, and he’s back with his real owner. I was just looking after him for a friend.”
“He’s such a sweet little doggie, you must really miss him?”
Jack is a little concerned at the direction this conversation is taking, but he’s touched by her genuine empathy for him and his furry friend. He tells her that although he’s very busy with work at the moment, yes, he does indeed miss Angus, and that he’s looking for the right dog to replace him (all of which is, of course, true). Then he moves things on adroitly: "I wonder if I could buy you lunch to make up for Angus' accident?"
Annie is flattered, but a little wary of Jack. She finds him charming, but a bit evasive. It’s almost as if he might be playing a game with her, and she’s very sensitive to that kind of thing.
“Well, perhaps ... erm, I don't know ..." she replies cautiously.
“Yes, of course, no worries” interrupts Jack quickly. “You don’t know me from Adam. Let me introduce myself properly: my name’s Jack Jones, and I’m delighted to meet you. Again! How about I just buy you a coffee then? In here. I need to check my e-mails anyway."
"OK, thanks. Let’s do that” says Annie, relieved that he’s not the pushy type, but just ever-so-slightly disappointed.
Jack fetches a couple of cappuccinos, hands one to her, and sits down to check e-mails and do a bit of Facebook-ing. After a while Annie gets up to leave, thanking Jack for the coffee. The Lad makes a last attempt to ask her out, and it’s a clever one: “Annie, umm before you go ... you probably aren’t too keen on dogs since one threw up on you, and I know that you’re more of a cat person ... but I don’t suppose you might be interested in going to the big dog show at Earl's Court this week?”
She considers this carefully. She does like him, and it’s certainly an original choice for a first date. He’s right, her favourite bundle of fur might be her cat, but she’s got nothing against ‘man’s best friend’. In fact, as we’ll discover, her job involves contact with all kinds of pets and their owners. Obviously a lot of people have dogs, so she needs to know as much as possible about them, including the weird and wonderful world of dog shows.
So, she’s intrigued by him, and even if it’s a disaster as a date, she has a professional reason for going. What has she got to lose?
“Well, I’m going to be busy all week, but I might be free on Saturday." As always with her, it’s a clever response, leaving some time and space for manoeuvre.
“OK, well if you can make it, let’s meet outside Earls Court tube station at eleven next Saturday morning. Don’t worry if you can’t, I’ll wait for a bit and then go on my own anyway. Oh, and here’s my mobile.”
Jack scribbles his number on a scrap of paper and hands it to her, trying to remain cheerful. He really likes Annie, but she’s certainly hard work. In fact, he’s never had this much trouble making a date with a woman before.
* * *
The week passes quickly. Jack busies himself with staking out the big house next to the Heath, but he’s not making much progress. The dog-walker (“some bimbo called Cheryl” he’s written in his notebook) seems to come and go randomly, if at all, so he stalks some fresh leads.
Harry gets increasingly tetchy as the money from their first heist starts to run out, but Jack is adamant that patient, painstaking preparation is crucial. “Fail to prepare, and prepare to fail, mate” he tells his partner, but Harry isn’t convinced by these wise words.
“You really are a poncey git at times, Jack” he says, but he knows that the Lad is his best hope of progress on the criminal ladder, and that means doing things his way.
Come Saturday morning Jack is waiting outside Earls Court tube station, looking at his watch, thinking: "well, it's 11.25 and she’s not here. She didn't call me. Feck knows why I’m waiting. I must be nuts."
He starts to walk away, but just in time hears his name called: "Jack, Jack, wait!" He turns round to see Annie running towards him, and greets her with a smile of relief.
“Hey, good to see you. I thought you’d forgotten."
"I wasn't sure, to be honest. I lost your number so I couldn’t call you, but I remembered you saying that you wouldn’t mind too much if I didn’t show up. Then this morning I was sitting on the tube thinking that I was being a bit mean, and there was a poster for ‘Crofts’, the dog show. It made it look really fun, and that did it. So, here I am.”
“Great. Good decision. It will be fun” Jack says, feeling like a teenager on his first date and not sure what to say next. There’s a pause as they look at each other shyly ...
“So, are we going to check out the doggies then ...? Annie eventually asks.
"Yes, of course, let’s go” he says. They link arms and stroll happily along to the exhibition centre.
Jack is surprised to find that he enjoys the show a lot more than he thought
he would. When he’d suggested it for their date, he was thinking strategically. It seemed the perfect choice to play to her obvious love of animals, and to enhance his ‘New Man’ image. Now they’re here he is, of course, delighted to be with Annie, but it’s not the only reason to be cheerful.
Crofts is the biggest dog show in the world, and there’s a whole canine universe crammed into Earls Court. Surrounded by woofers of all shapes and sizes, and every kind of dog product, service, and activity imaginable, he finds it all quite overwhelming. Everywhere he looks there are cute mutts gazing at him with soulful expressions and he can’t resist them. Rather than just feeling little shocks of emotion, here it’s more like he’s been connected to an emotional national grid.
The bitterness he felt all those years ago, when his dad took his best friend Scruffy away from him, is forgotten here. The years spent avoiding commitment have been wasted years. Earls Court is Jack’s Road to Damascus. It’s where he finally realises that he’s a fully paid-up member of the dog-lovers club. Except that ... well, he isn’t, is he? Paid up? I don’t think so. Not when his job is to steal them!
The irony isn’t wasted on him, but what can he do? One day maybe he’ll have a dog of his own again, but for now he needs to make his money by nicking somebody else’s. In the long run he’s definitely going to have to look for a more worthwhile job, but in the short term ... “well, at least I’ll make damn sure that they’re well looked after” he thinks. “And I’m only doing it so that I can look after my old mum” he reminds himself. Deep down though he knows that he’s only deluding himself by using his mum to justify nicking dogs, when really he’d much rather care for them.
Of course he doesn’t discuss any of this with Annie. As they wander around the stands, Jack-the-Lad is romancing her in his usual charming style, while Jack-the-dog-lover is pondering these thorny issues. Together they rummage around the wooftastic attractions.
Now there’s a word to conjure with. “Look at this Annie ...” he says as they pass a poster of a gorgeous fluffy white pooch wearing glasses and typing away on a laptop. “WooftasticBooks.com - that’s a name to remember. I’ll Google it when I get home, and see what they’ve got on there.”
Something is gnawing away at the back of his memory. “I’ve seen that dog somewhere before, haven’t I?” Then it dawns on him: “oh yes, got it! It looks just like the pooch in that fancy house in Hampstead. It couldn’t be, could it? That would be some coincidence.”
He doesn’t have long to mull it over before Annie is dragging him away, saying stuff like: “a penny for them ... your thoughts. What’s up eh Jack? The cat got your tongue then? Ha ha!”
Jack is jolted from his mullings. “Oh, sorry, I’m easily distracted in here. Cat, yes, very funny. I don’t think you’ll see many of them around here.”
“More’s the pity” says Annie. “Everyone knows, cats are far more sophisticated. Dogs just follow their nose, and what’s between their legs. A bit like men really! Ha ha. You won’t see cats spending half their time sniffing each others’ bottoms. Not that I’m saying that men do that ... Well, not much anyway.”
They both collapse in laughter, and stroll along, arm-in-arm, playfully arguing the relative merits of cats and dogs, with plenty of opportunity for flirtatious double-entendres.
“She’s definitely fun” thinks Jack. “We might have our differences, but maybe this cat/dog-person thing might lead to a bit of an opposites-attract thing.”
They turn a corner and come to a stand advertising courses for dog trainers. Jack picks up a leaflet, glances at the photos (guess what? more cute dogs!), and puts it in his pocket.
"Thinking about a career move?" Annie asks him.
"No, not really, I haven't got the time to do a course ...”
"Why pick up a leaflet then?"
"Just curiosity really. The ‘Canine Behavioral Therapy’ one does look quite interesting. One day, when I’ve got more time maybe."
Annie is intrigued and delves deeper. “What exactly is it that you do, Jack?” she asks.
“Oh I see, it’s curiosity got the cat now, is it? Well, you know, a bit of this, a bit of that ... nothing very interesting. I was working for myself, trying to be an entrepreneur on my own, but I’ve just teamed up with someone to start a new business venture. Actually we have been looking at the dog market, since people seem happy to spend so much on their pets. Just look around here, it’s quite amazing isn’t it?”
He hopes that this will deflect her questions for the moment, and he moves the conversation on to her. “Anyway, while we’re delving into each other’s background, what job do you do Annie?”
“Well, I’m a sort of freelance researcher, and sometimes my work involves animals as well. They’re my real love to be honest.”
“Sounds interesting” Jack says, similarly intrigued. “So this wasn’t such a bad suggestion for a day out then, for both of us.”
They smile at each other. Each has the feeling that the other may have been a bit economical with the truth, but before they can do any more delving, the PA bursts into life to announce that the show is just about to start in the main arena. They take their seats and spend the afternoon enjoying the parade of gorgeous dogs.
‘Crofts’ is a sort of canine beauty competition, like Miss World, but one in which the contestants are neither dressed in glamorous swimwear, nor drone on about their goal in life being world peace. Instead they have all been given elaborately long stage names.
Each dog is lead into the ring by his handler, and introduced to the audience. “Now we have Snooty, a lovely example of the Yorkshire terrier breed. He’s from a long line of champions; bred, trained and owned by one of our most successful breeders: mrs Sophie Ashley-Turner. Just look at the way he struts his stuff. Great attitude and bearing. No wonder he’s Best-in-Breed. His show name is: ‘Big-Ben Prince Great-Balls-of-Fire, the elder’.”
Jack and Annie collapse in fits of laughter. Annie had heard that breeders gave their prize pooches bizarre stage names, but she never released that they were quite this ridiculous.
“Shh, quiet!” the people around them hiss. You can feel the tension as the canine contestants are introduced, and the judges deliberate. The audience are on the edge of their seats. It’s serious stuff for all except these two.
“Check out the Bulldog over there ...” whispers the Lad. “He should be called: 'His-Great-Woofyness Viscount Vincent-Butt-Face'.”
“Not bad ...” says Annie giggling, “and that Great Dane is probably known to his friends as: ‘King-Canute-of-Kenwood Keep-an-Eye-on-my-Nuts’.”
"That's great" laughs Jack.
“Will you two please shut up!” a stern lady in a tweed suit admonishes, staring disapprovingly at Annie’s dreadlocks, but they are into their stride now ...
“The Bassett Hound just has to be called: ‘Bonny-Belleville Honey-Nut-Crunch the Duchess-of-Chewies’, don’t you think Jack?”
There are both giggling uncontrollably now, much to the annoyance of the surrounding members of the audience. Eventually, and inevitably, they are asked to leave by the head judge. But it’s been worth it. There’s a bond between them now.
* * *
Jack continues his surveillance of the big house next to Hampstead Heath, clocking the movements of the inhabitants and visitors, and trying to devise a plan to nab the dog.
The head of the household is a bossy businesswoman in her mid forties - a single mum, with a typically obnoxious teenage daughter. Both are well rounded, as well as well-heeled, and neither spend any time with the dog, relying instead on the Cheryl bimbo.
This time, pinching the pooch from the Heath while the dog-walker is distracted is not going to work. Cheryl is very erratic and doesn’t seem to have a routine. Some days she doesn’t show up at all, but when she does take the dog for a walk she always keeps it on a lead. Sometimes she doesn’t even bother to leave the house, and instead just leaves the pooch to wander around the back garden.
This gives Jack an idea. They will have to grab the dog from the garden. The problem is Jack can’t predict when the dog will be left outside unattended, and he knows that Harry would never be patient enough to wait for the opportunity. There’s also the risk that the gardener might see them.
Eventually, after several round-the-clock surveillance sessions, he comes up with another cunning plan. He notices that the bossy businesswoman normally lets the dog out in the garden when she gets home in the evening. If they pinch it then, it’ll be dark, and there’ll be no gardener. As he suspected, there don’t appear to be any security cameras protecting the garden, so he makes a hole in the hedge, covering it back up again each time. They can nab the dog and escape onto the heath through his hole.
If they then leave the hole exposed, Mrs BossyBoots will naturally think that the pooch has escaped from the garden through the hedge, and is now lost somewhere on the Heath. She’ll put up the lost dog posters, like that other rich biddy did, and they can send Pauline to the house to collect the reward again.
Clearly there’s more that could go wrong this time, even allowing for Pauline’s involvement. Jack’s not even sure whether it’s going to be worth the risk, but then he sees something that convinces him that the risk-to-reward ratio will be more than favourable.
* * *
He’s sitting in the internet cafe on a dreary Sunday afternoon, enjoying a few hours away from the tedium of his partner’s company by browsing through the Sunday papers online. Secretly he’s hoping that Annie might show up, but he’s not quite ready to admit it to himself. He really enjoyed their day out at the dog show, and he knows that he wants to see her again, but his intuition is to play it a bit cool with her. So he’s hoping that their paths might just cross again in the cafe. Anyway, the coffee is good there, and he knows that he can’t be seen reading the Sunday Times at home. Harry would crucify him if he saw Jack reading anything other than a tabloid.