by Nikki Attree
He glances idly at Sid’s pet shop, with it’s curious sign for the ‘Happy Tails’ pet detective agency, and shudders as they pass the ‘Bucket of Blood’. Thinking of nightmare scenarios, that night in there with Harry and Pauline in full flow was nearly the end of their relationship. But there again Annie took it all in her stride. “That’s right Jack, lad” he reminds himself, “she is special, so don’t you mess it up this time.”
As the bus leaves the hectic, cosmopolitan, some-might-say seedy side of the borough, and heads into quieter, gentrified Hackney, he starts to relax. The further he gets from the insanity of Harry’s world the nearer he gets to the sanity of Annie’s. By the time he’s walking down her street, with it’s neat Victorian terraced houses, he’s in good spirits.
He rings her doorbell. They greet each other affectionately, and she shows him into the kitchen. He gives her a bottle of wine, and they talk easily to each other as she starts preparing dinner. Jack immediately feels at home in her house. There’s a relaxed charm about it. Nothing is exactly tidy, but it’s a very different untidiness from the chaos of Harry’s place. More friendly disorganisation, as opposed to disorder that threatens your health.
A few of her pets wander around, and Jack asks for the guided tour of the menagerie. He’s already met Sparkle, her cat, of course. She knows that he’s really a dog person so she’s impressed as he strokes her, and Sparkle seems to like him too. She introduces him to the four guinea pigs. Jack picks up Cookie and marvels at how relaxed she is in his hands. She rewards him by peeing on his hand.
“Now we’re even” he says laughing. “Oh, I don’t know about that” Annie replies. “I think Angus came up with a bit more, so to speak.”
Next she shows him the tank of exotic fish she rescued from the Indian restaurant. Jack resists the temptation to make a curry-related joke this time, and instead says nice things about her generous spirit.
Finally he gets to meet Dougal, the incredibly friendly rabbit. Jack gives him a cuddle, while watching out for any sign of a leak from his rear end. Annie again explains that he was dumped on her, quite possibly by one of her ex students.
So, the menagerie is a continuously expanding, ongoing project. Annie is really running a mini refuge for all kinds of abandoned animals, and it’s an increasingly demanding role. Jack wonders how she finds time to look after them all and hold down a freelance job.
“I could do with a bit of help actually” she says, looking at him coyly.
He smiles shyly. “What’s going on, Jack lad?” he’s thinking. “Me, shy? With a woman?” It’s certainly a novel feeling for him, but then there is something special about her. The menagerie / refuge is part of this specialness. Taking time out of her busy life to rescue abandoned animals is just one aspect of her generous spirit, and perhaps it is something that they could share. Why not? He’s gradually learning to love animals - even those that relieve themselves on him.
“How do they all get on together?” he asks.
“Oh, well we’re like one big extended family really. You know, a few fights, some ruffled feathers, but basically we all have to get on.”
He looks at her. Really looks at her. In the eyes. Sees a spark. And they kiss.
Time stops for a few moments.
They come up for air, breathless, and there’s that slightly embarrassed pause. Neither wants to spoil it by speaking. They look at each other, aware that their lives may have just changed course. They are both happier than they have been for a very long time.
Annie is the first to speak: “well, Jack, you took your time! And I had you down as a smooth operator ...”
He laughs, nervously. “To be honest, normally I would have moved things on rather more quickly. But you’re different. I didn’t want to spoil it.”
“Aha, and is that how we’re going to be with each other? honest, I mean?”
“Yes, yes, of course ...” But there’s just the slightest hint of hesitation, and he avoids her eyes.
She smiles at him and shrugs. “OK, well that will have to do for now, I suppose. At least now I know I’m not one of your ‘normal’ girl friends ...” And this time she kisses him.
They open the bottle of wine, and as she cooks dinner she tells him a bit more about herself. How her previous relationships have been fatally flawed, and how so far she’s been unlucky in love. How she has an unfortunate tendency to be attracted to unsuitable men, bad boys, a bit of rough. How they mess her around and leave her damaged. How she’s only just got over the last one - the lecturer, aka the lecher. She tells Jack how he actually drove her out of her previous job in the college. Whether Jack qualifies as “a bit of rough” is left open, undiscussed, hanging in the air.
They finish the bottle of wine over dinner (by the way, she’s a pretty good cook, and it’s delicious), open another, and get comfortable on her charmingly pet-damaged sofa (having kicked a few random animals off it first).
She tells him about her short-lived career as an aura consultant in the hippy health shop, and they share a few new-age jokes. She’d like him to open up a bit more about his own past, his relationships, his job, but she decides to take a leaf out of his book, and not rush things.
Instead, he finds himself talking about his parents and his childhood - something he’s never done before. He tells her about his first dog: Scruffy. How his father brought home this cute little Spaniel pup when he was eight. He loved that dog so much, but his dad got rid of Scruffy after just a few weeks and Jack never really forgave him.
This is the first time that he’s told anybody about it, and he’s surprised to find he has a few tears welling up as he describes how devastated he was when his best friend was wrenched away from him. It’s a moment of self-realisation for him. “You know Annie, I’ve never told anyone else about this. It might sound ridiculous, but I think that maybe it’s affected me more than I’ve ever admitted to myself. Like, my relationships ...”
He pauses, lost in thought. Annie says nothing to break his flow, and eventually he continues: “maybe it’s even affected my relationships. Like it’s stopped me from really letting go and properly opening up to anyone. Perhaps ever since then, I’ve been scared to love someone in case they were wrenched away from me, like Scruffy was.”
He looks her straight in the eyes again, and sees recognition. She knows this feeling. She puts her arms around him, and kisses his face gently. “It doesn’t sound ridiculous to me, Jack” she whispers.
But now her world is falling apart, and she feels sick with dread.
So, Jack’s dog was called Scruffy; and she heard that repulsive man: Harry, his ‘business partner’ call him “Jack-the-Lad”; and the person she’s been chasing through cyberspace is called @ScruffyLad ...
It could be a coincidence. Of course it could. She hangs onto the thought. But then there are all the other things: the two dogs that Jack claims to be looking after, and the way that he and Harry couldn’t agree what breed they were; Jack’s reluctance to talk about his job; his unwillingness to go to the park with her; the social networking stuff; and finally there’s Jennifer ...
She looks him in the eye and asks him whether he’s ever used an empty hotel room to have sex with somebody working there? Maybe a maid? or perhaps even a prostitute?
He laughs, but it’s a slightly desperate laugh. “What kind of a question is that?” he blusters, playing for time.
“It’s the kind of question that I sometimes have to ask in my work” she says, dead pan.
“Well OK, yes, there might have been the odd fling in a hotel room. You know, a holiday romance kind of thing. Nothing serious though, and certainly nothing that would come between us.”
He looks at her with his best puppy-dog expression, and she’s so tempted to believe him.
“And what you said about being honest with each other? You really meant it? I need to know.”
“I meant it. Don’t worry” he says, and he does sound sincere. “But you have to give me time. Li
ke I said, I’ve never really opened up to anybody before. And anyway, it works both ways ... You haven’t exactly been an open book with me. About you work, your past ... until tonight anyway.”
Again they look. Trying to look into the other’s soul. And failing. So they kiss again. Passionately this time. But it’s also a desperate kiss. Passion born out of desperation. It’s clear now that they are going to spend the night together. They both desperately want it to work, and they allow passion to obliterate the doubts.
It’s not just Annie who has doubts. Jack has never really wanted a long term relationship with her, until now. And just as everything changes between them, he begins to suspect that their relationship is doomed.
“What was all that about the hotel room?” he thinks. “What did she mean: ‘it’s the kind of question that I sometimes have to ask in my work’?”
He thinks back to their night in the ‘Bucket of Blood’. After that scumbag spat at her, she said something about having to deal with people like that in her work. And, of course, there’s the small issue of her brother being a police inspector. “What exactly is it that she does?” he wonders, yet again.
Then it all clicks into place. Right there, on the living room wall, in a framed newspaper cutting, with a picture of her beneath the headline: ‘It’s a Fur Cop!’
It’s funny, ever since they first met he’s had the strange feeling that he’s seen her before. He dismissed it as a kind of déjà vu. Perhaps even fate telling him that they were destined for each other (he thinks this ironically, jokingly, to himself). Now he realises that he has actually seen her before. On television, in the news. She appeared for a few seconds when the police arrested the person that had poisoned that dog at Crofts. And here, on her living room wall, is the full story. He manages to read some of it without alerting her, and when he sees references to the ‘Dreadlocks Detective’, and ‘Happy Tails’, he finally knows what she does for a living.
“Freelance researcher, indeed! Nice understatement Annie” he thinks. “At least she isn’t working for the police.”
Now that he knows she’s a private investigator, the obvious question is whether she is currently investigating him. Right now he doesn’t really care, because she is currently investigating his body, and doing it rather well. It’s time to move from the sofa to her bed.
“Would you like to stay the night, Jack?” she asks him, in a whisper.
“Yes, I would. Definitely. As long as we don’t have to share the bed with any of your menagerie.”
She laughs. That’s one thing that won’t change: he can always make her laugh, and she loves him for it. Her kisses her again, and they make their way upstairs to her bedroom.
“I need to be up ridiculously early tomorrow though” he warns her, as they undress. “I’ve got something really important to do first thing, and I can’t get out of it.”
“That’s OK” she says, lying back on the sheets. “Funny thing is, I’ve also got a really early start and a big day tomorrow.”
They gaze at each other, and now they are sharing the same thoughts, the same doubts, the same passion. Tomorrow they might be enemies, but tonight they’ll be lovers. Star Crossed Lovers7 perhaps, but at least they will always have tonight. These thoughts, these doubts, are flooding their minds even as they start to make love.
Neither of them is asleep as he slips out of her bed in the dark. She pretends to be, because there’s nothing more to say to each other. She watches him dress, through half closed eyes. He turns back to look at her for one last long moment, before silently opening the door and sneaking down the stairs.
“Well, whatever happens now, we’ll always have our night in Stoke Newington”8 he thinks as he creeps out of the house. His otherwise perfect getaway is spoiled as he trips over Dougal in the hall. Annie suppresses a giggle at the familiar squeak and muted curse (remember Elizabeth’s exit from her office?). The rabbit relieves himself on Jack’s bare feet, just as he’s about to put his shoes and socks on.
14 DENOUEMENT IN WEMBLEY
Jack arrives home at four in the morning to find Harry asleep, snoring loudly, and smelling of beer. Jack wakes him up and drags him out of bed.
“Bleedin ‘ell Jack. It’s the middle of the f-ing night!” Harry grunts sleepily, scratching his unmentionables. “And where the feck were you last night, mate? Gettin yer leg over I ‘spose?”
“Never mind about that!” Jack hisses angrily. “I’m here now. So get yourself sorted, mate. We’ve got work to do, remember?”
He leaves Harry to reboot himself into professional criminal mode, and goes to wake the dogs. They’re curled up together on the Lad’s bed, snoozing happily, and dreaming of chasing cats across muddy fields. They’re pleased to see him but a bit confused that it’s dark, and instead of getting into bed with them, he’s attaching their collars and leads.
Jack takes them for one last walk before they’re returned to their rightful owners. As they stroll through the deserted streets, stoically sniffing lampposts, he realises how much he’ll miss having them around, just as when he said goodbye to Angus. The dogs seem to pick up on his reflective mood and give him little inquisitive glances.
“What’s happening now?” Doodle woofs to Gizmo. “Do you think we’re finally going to your island to finish the film?”
“Maybe ... that would be wooftastic. I’m getting a bit fed up with the weather here” Gizmo woofs back.
Doodle: “I’ll miss this human though. He’s more fun than my mistress, and I’ve started to quite like him”
They arrive back in the yard and Jack gives them one last cuddle before putting them in the back of the van. Harry watches impatiently from the driver’s seat, snorting with derision and fired up with adrenaline. They make their way towards Wembley in silence. A rueful smile flits across Jack’s face as he replays last night’s events in his mind. There’s no telling what today will bring, “but whatever happens, I’ll always have that night in Stoke Newington” he thinks to himself.
* * *
4:30 am. Annie is also wide awake at this unearthly hour, and piloting her little Renault through the deserted streets towards the North Circular. She is also thinking about last night, but unlike Jack she’s wondering if she made a huge mistake. The warm glow is fading fast in the icy predawn and is being replaced by a feeling of impending disaster.
In the passenger seat is her part-time ‘rent-a-thug’ sidekick: Tommy, tooled up with his trusty baseball bat and as high on adrenaline as Harry. Ahead of them, in an unmarked police car, is her brother Robert and a colleague.
Some way behind them is Elizabeth’s silver Mercedes. As usual she’s running late. The plan was for Annie and Robert to follow her discreetly, but no worries. She has the satnav programmed with the coordinates of the ‘Sleep-A-Lot’ factory, and as she gets near she calls Annie on the handsfree and tells her that she’s approaching the rendezvous. They are already parked up behind the factory, well hidden, watching the car park through binoculars.
Crouched in the back seat of Elizabeth’s car, with a video camera, is the journalist who has negotiated exclusive coverage with her. At a nearby heliport, a camera crew, tipped off by the journalist's network, are on standby, waiting to take to the air and broadcast the story live on breakfast television.
Meanwhile, several thousand miles away in Tenerife, Nikki is in the airport terminal, waiting for the desk to open so she can buy a ticket for the next flight to the UK. She has finally lost patience with Elizabeth and is now determined to do whatever it takes to find Gizmo.
* * *
4:55 am. Jack and Harry arrive at the derelict bedding factory. The car park is empty, except for a pile of abandoned cardboard boxes and one lone car. The dognappers park a few yards from the solitary car and wait.
Five minutes later Harry breaks the silence: "why the feck doesn't she get out the car? We got the time right ‘aven’t we, mate?”
“Yes, we have” Jack hisses. “Stay here and look after the
dogs. I’ll go and wake her up.”
He pulls a balaclava over his head, and combined with the leather jacket and black jeans he definitely looks the part. He walks slowly, menacingly, towards the parked car. As he gets closer he realises that the windows are all steamed up, rather than tinted glass, but he can see that it’s not Elizabeth.
Inside a couple are having a shag, hard at it (so to speak) in the back seat. The woman sees Jack’s balaclava’d eyes peering in at them and screams. Her partner scrambles into the driving seat, somewhat hampered by his trousers and pants stuck halfway down his legs, and they drive off erratically.
An exasperated sigh escapes Jack’s lips. “Schoolboy error” he thinks. “There’s no way that our posh producer lady would be driving around in a hot hatch with go-faster stripes.” Harry gestures wildly at him from the van and just as he’s beginning to wonder if she’s going to show up, a silver Mercedes with blacked-out windows glides into the car park.
It’s 5:10 am when Elizabeth arrives. Ten minutes late is, by her reckoning, early. She sees Jack standing beside the van, looking menacing in his hard-man outfit. There’s a familiar bark from the van, and she sees the dogs peering out of the back window.
Elizabeth gets out of the car, carrying a plastic bag (from Harrods) with the money. The journalist hides in the back of the Merc, holding the camera up to the window and filming through the one-way glass. She walks towards Jack, and she’s the first to break the tense silence: "I want to see the dogs before I hand over the money."
Jack nods, and slides open the side door of the van. “Leave this to me” he hisses to Harry, and grabs the dogs’ leads. Doodle and Gizmo leap out, gleefully wagging their tails. They jump up at Jack aiming to lick his face, a bit confused by the balaclava, but grateful for what looks like being another walkies opportunity.