by Nikki Attree
* * *
Robert terminates the interview with Jack, and joins Annie next door. “Well now, that was certainly a turn up for the book, as my colleague put it” he says to her, thoughtfully. “I think it’s time that we requested the pleasure of Mrs Parker-Smyth’s company, don’t you think?”
Annie agrees. Her brother asks the sergeant to send a car round to Elizabeth’s office, and escort her back to the station to be interviewed. Then he suggests that they go and get a bite to eat. “What’s the local pub like?” he asks.
“Well, if you mean the infamous ‘Bucket of Blood’, otherwise known as the ‘Den of Thieves’, then you might want to rethink the phrase ‘a bite to eat’. That’s unless you don’t mind risking a dose of rabies!” Annie says, smiling ruefully.
“I see” Robert says, and they head to the cafe on the High Street for lunch.
When they return to the police station, Elizabeth is already seated in the interview room, complaining in “the strongest possible terms” about being dragged from her work. “I want to make a complaint of police harassment” she announces.
“I see” Robert says. “No problem. We can organise that, can’t we D.C. Forrest?” he says to his colleague, winking. Elizabeth demands to speak to Robert’s superior.
“I am the most senior officer currently available to speak to you” he replies. “So, the quicker that we get this over with, the sooner you can get back to work. After you’ve filed your complaint, of course.” Elizabeth shrugs.
“Right, let’s make a start then” Robert announces, consulting his notes. “I believe that the dogs were stolen from the Wags boarding kennels, some time on the night of Friday the seventh of August, and you informed us that your dogs were missing on Monday the tenth of August?” Elizabeth shrugs, and then nods.
“We then heard nothing more from you, until your meeting with the dog nappers ...” Robert again winks at his colleague, “on Tuesday the first of September?” Elizabeth shrugs.
Robert pauses, waiting for her to be more forthcoming. She isn’t, so he proceeds: “so, why no further assistance with our inquiries? What were you doing during those three weeks?”
She shrugs, and scowls at them, but this time she replies: “I realised, very quickly, that the police would be completely useless, so I decided to employ a specialist private investigator, who by the way, confirmed my opinion of you lot.”
“I see. Did she now?” Robert says, winking again, this time in the direction of the one-way window. “Well, I have no problem with that. I can understand you needing to turn to an expert in animal retrieval when we are so hugely under-resourced, and overworked, trying to track down armed robbers and terrorists. Anyway, moving on ... I believe the dog nappers first made contact with you on, or around, the thirteenth of August?”
Elizabeth shrugs, says nothing, but eventually nods.
D.C. Forrest intervenes: “and how was contact established?”
“They put a note in my letterbox.”
“I see” D.C. Forrest says, winking at Robert, and leaving a long pause. “... and whoever delivered the note managed to post it unobserved? You have no security cameras, for example?”
Elizabeth shrugs, and shakes her head angrily. “No. Look, how long is this going take? I’m right in the middle of some very delicate negotiations to publicise our current movie project. The one that was halted, mid shoot, by the theft of the dogs that you failed to find!”
“Ah yes, the dog film that you’ve been so assiduously publicising?” D.C. Forrest asks, using his ‘silky smooth’ voice.
The sarcasm is wasted on the producer. She just ploughs straight on: “so, unless you have anything more relevant to tell me, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that I’ll have to leave.” She gets up out of the chair.
“Sit down Mrs Parker-Smyth!” Robert orders, suddenly using a much less conciliatory tone. “We do have a few more questions for you, actually.”
“Not to mention processing your complaint of police harassment, of course” D.C. Forrest adds, in an overly greasy tone.
Elizabeth sits down, muttering about how her friend in the Home Office is going to hear about this. Robert turns on the tape recorder, and once again records the date, and details of who is present: “two thirty pm. Interview with Mrs Elizabeth Parker-Smyth, regarding the theft of her dogs and ...” he leaves a significant pause, before looking her straight in the eyes and continuing: “her possible collusion with the dog nappers!”
Elizabeth doesn’t shrug. This time she splutters. “What the hell are you t-t-talking about?” she stutters.
“Ah yes, sorry about that” Robert replies, using his annoyingly smarmy voice, “I nearly forgot to add: as well as a possible conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.” He smiles at her. “It’s so hard to remember to do everything by the book, because the book is getting so long these days. Anyway, I think that just about covers it.” He turns back to face her, no longer smiling.
Elizabeth says nothing for a moment. Her eyes dart this way and that. She stares anywhere and everywhere, except at the detectives. After a while she demands that a lawyer is present, before listening to this “trumped-up conspiracy theory”.
“All in good time, Mrs Parker-Smyth. Don’t worry, everything you say will be faithfully recorded ...”
“And may be given in evidence” D.C. Forrest adds, this time sounding gratuitously keen. “Oh yes, and I nearly forgot the best bit: it may harm your defence if you do not mention something which you later rely on in court ...”
Robert butts in: “now just hang on a moment, D.C. Forrest. Full marks for enthusiasm, but we’re not arresting Mrs Parker-Smyth, so it’s not necessary to caution her ...” Again he leaves a pause, pregnant with possibilities, “... for the moment, anyway.” Yet again he winks at his colleague.
Sitting behind the one-way window, watching and listening to her brother at work, Annie is both fascinated and impressed. She’s always known that he was a clever so-and-so, but she had no idea how good a detective he really was. “Hmm, I can learn a thing or two from this” she thinks, watching his inspired double act with his colleague. “I wonder if they’ll get her to confess.”
She doesn’t have long to wonder. Robert produces a piece of paper from his folder and shows it to Elizabeth. “Do you recognise the handwriting in this note, madam?” he asks her.
Elizabeth doesn’t shrug. Her mouth drops open, but nothing comes out. Her face looks exactly like one of Annie’s fish, just before they gobble their food.
“For the purposes of the tape, I have just shown exhibit A to Mrs Parker-Smyth” Robert says, while they wait for Elizabeth to respond. Time stretches on and on, like an elastic band. Eventually it, and Elizabeth, snaps.
“OK, I admit I wrote it” she says with a defiant shrug. “But can you blame me? My job was on the line. Everything that I’d worked so hard for, was collapsing around me. I had just a few days to find a solution, before our whole budget was blown, and the project would be toast. I had to find a way to use this disaster to our advantage. Surely you can understand that?”
Now it’s the detectives’ turn to shrug. “No, not really” Robert replies, “but I’m sure it made sense to you. So perhaps you can enlighten us further.” He sits back in his chair.
Elizabeth has a dazed look in her eyes. “Well, I’m not sure where to start ...”
“We’re all ears, Mrs Parker-Smyth” D.C. Forrest prompts. “Perhaps you can elaborate on how you colluded with these criminals to extend your dogs’ suffering, in order to promote the film that you’re making with them.”
“No, it wasn’t like that” Elizabeth replies, looking hurt.
“So what was it like?”
“Look, I never meant the dogs to get harmed, and they didn’t, did they? It was all a kind of game. You know, like chess - a game where the player with the best strategy wins.”
“It sounds to me more like a stunt, as in a publicity stunt” Robert states. “Anyway, let’s just bac
ktrack a bit. What happened when the dog nappers made contact with you?” he asks her.
Bit by bit they drag the truth out of her. She tells them that when she received the first note she was terrified by the idea that these monsters knew where she and her daughter lived, and that they were being stalked. So she hired a security man to guard the house around the clock, telling him to follow anyone who posted a letter at her home (other than the postman of course).
So when Pauline delivered the second note, in her granny disguise, she was followed back to her home, and identified. Elizabeth’s first thought was to go straight to the police with the information, but then she realised that now she knew something about the dognappers. Something that they didn’t know that she knew, and as we all know: ‘knowledge is power’.
“And there’s nothing that Elizabeth likes better than power” Annie thinks to herself.
So, the producer decided to use this knowledge to her advantage. She made her move, putting the dognappers in check by telling them that she knew all about them, and planning checkmate a few moves later. She realised that she was already getting a lot of coverage from the theft of her canine stars, so why not keep the story in the news a bit longer, to give her and her people time to set up a few more interviews. Perhaps then she could turn Gizmo and Doodle into Lassie or Uggie style celebrities, before ‘Nobody’s Poodle’ was even released.
“Aha, so that’s why she seemed strangely unconcerned about the dogs’ welfare, and just wanted to mention the film at every opportunity” Annie thinks, becoming increasingly angry with her client. The pet detective is beginning to realise that she too was led up the garden path, and used as a pawn in the producer’s game of chess.
Elizabeth continues to explain / justify her strategy: “I realised that now I could turn the tables on these bastards. You know, do a blackmail-the-blackmailers kind of thing. So when they sent me the second ransom note, I decided to hold them to ransom. Instead of giving them the money, I told them exactly what I wanted them to do. So, it wasn’t a matter of me colluding with criminals to pervert the course of justice, as you put it, more a matter of them colluding with me to execute a clever marketing strategy.”
She sits back, looking smug once again. “It worked like a dream” she adds, explaining how she told the dognappers to keep the dogs, and send her more photos of them looking bedraggled and sad, so she had something to show the media, and generate more sympathy. Again she emphasises that she never wanted the dogs to be harmed, especially Doodle as she was her daughter's pet.
“I see” Robert says, sounding unconvinced. “You were very lucky then, that one of the dognappers turned out to be quite fond of his hostages, otherwise this ‘game’ could have gone horribly wrong.”
Annie agrees with her brother. When he started stealing dogs, Jack discovered that he actually loved them, and he ended up looking after his canine prisoners as if they were his own pets. It seems as if this is one thing that he was telling the truth about. She suddenly feels a tiny morsel of tenderness towards the lad, but then she reminds herself of all the other things that he lied about. And as Robert said, she shudders to think what would have happened if Jack’s ‘business partner’ had got his hands on their hostages.
“And what about the money?” D.C. Forrest asks Elizabeth. “Did you really take ten thousand pounds from your publicity budget, to pay the dog nappers for providing ...” he glances at exhibit A, ‘promotional services’?”
Elizabeth shrugs, and again a self-satisfied, smug smile plays on her lips. “Well yes, of course. That way if we didn’t get the cash back I could claim it as a tax expense. In any case, I knew that if the movie was successful my bonus would more than cover it. Oh, by the way that reminds me, I’d like the ten K back this afternoon if you don’t mind.”
Now it’s the detectives turn to shrug and look uninterested. She addresses D.C. Forrest, in the tone she uses for subservients: “so, if you could just run along and find it. It’s in a Harrods bag ...”
Neither of the detectives move. “It will remain in our custody as evidence, until the trial” Robert tells her. “Talking of which ... as I said, you are not currently under arrest Mrs Parker-Smyth, so you are free to go now that we have your statement on tape.”
Elizabeth looks relieved, but Robert hasn’t finished yet: “I must warn you, however, that we will be forwarding it to the public prosecutor, and he may want to take further action. So I think you will be hearing from us again.”
16 SEE YOU IN COURT
Elizabeth gets back to the office, after her bruising encounter with the long arm of the law, to find a message from Nikki insisting that Gizmo flies back to Tenerife as soon as possible. “I don’t blame her” the producer thinks, “after what we’ve put her through.” The first pin pricks of remorse are just starting to puncture the producer’s armor-plated self-confidence, but of course it’s still the ‘royal we’ who has caused Gizmo’s owner so much angst.
Thankfully it’s not too much of a problem for her, now the film is back on track. They had just about finished filming the studio scenes involving the dogs, and were planning to head to Tenerife anyway for the location shoot. That can be put on hold for the moment, while she organises the logistics and placates Nikki. “Perhaps we can persuade Gizmo’s owner to cooperate by offering her a role” the producer wonders, “maybe as an extra, or some kind of local canine consultant. After all she is the author of ‘Nobody’s Poodle’”12 she reminds herself, “so she’s obviously going to want to finish the film of her book, eventually.”
She sends Nikki an e-mail explaining that yes, of course she’ll be making the arrangements for Gizmo’s return flight, just as soon as he’s been checked by the vet and passed fit to fly. She adds that he’s being given lots of care and attention by her daughter, and that the two Labradoodles are getting on like a house on fire. She doesn’t mention the film, just that she’ll be visiting Tenerife herself soon, and she looks forward to meeting Gizmo’s owner.
Nikki replies that unless she gets her pooch back by the end of the week she’ll be jumping on a flight to London, and Elizabeth will get her chance to meet, but it definitely won’t be a meeting that she should look forward to! Furthermore, she warns Elizabeth that she can forget all about the film, unless the vet certifies that Gizmo is one hundred percent healthy after his ordeal. She ends by saying that given the way he’s been looked after in the UK (not), the last thing she wants to hear about is a house on fire.
The next morning Gizmo is duly examined by a top vet (in Harley Street) who declares that he’s in excellent condition. He actually compliments Elizabeth on the details of her canine care: his fur is glossy and well groomed, his teeth have been brushed, his nails clipped, and he has obviously had plenty of exercise. It seems as if that obnoxious police inspector had a point: the dogs were indeed well looked after by their captors, and she was lucky that one of them, at least, was a dog lover. Doodle is also actually looking quite perky after her enforced stay in Stoke Newington, and seems to have more of a spring in her step.
After he’s had his checkup and declared fit to fly, Gizmo is driven straight to Gatwick13 to board the next flight for Tenerife, without even being given the chance to woof goodbye to Doodle. He’s not too bothered really. As readers of ‘Nobody’s Poodle’ know: he’s a stoic pooch, and somehow he knows that he’ll see her again. He feels it in his bones. In the meantime, he can’t wait to feel the sun on his fur and the warm sand beneath his paws again. Not to mention being reunited with his mistress, of course.
Doodle is a little less stoic when she realises that Gizmo is gone. She was loving having a furry friend in that big empty house, even if he was a bit uncouth. Miranda was taking them for regular walks on the Heath together, and they were even allowed the occasional romp in one of the upstairs bedrooms. “Oh well, I guess it’s back to being a home-alone pooch” she thinks sadly, and pines for those heady few days they spent together in Stoke Newington.
Elizabeth
says nothing about her confession in the police station to her boss, or Miranda. No word about colluding with the dognappers, nor about playing a strategic game with them. Nothing about the publicity stunt, nor about how it could have so easily backfired and resulted in the dogs ending up in the river. She’s still flavor-of-the-month at work, milking the dognapping story for every drop of publicity; and at home, rebuilding trust with her grateful daughter. If there are to be consequences, as the police warned her, then she’ll cross that bridge when she comes to it.
Everybody’s lives are put on hold, paused until the case comes to court. Harry is remanded in custody in The Scrubs, and spends his days protesting his innocence and plotting how he’ll take revenge on his ex partner. Unlike her son, Pauline is pleading guilty, and quite looking forward to another stay in her “‘ome from ‘ome” in Holloway. Since he’s also pleading guilty, Jack is released on bail, tagged, and goes to stay with his mother.
His mum was becoming more frail and lonely by the day, and having him around gives her a new lease of life, even if the circumstances of his return are not the happiest. The events that have brought him home to her have also brought home to him how badly he needs a change of direction. He spends his time searching for a more sustainable way to support her, and thinking about Annie.
He misses her so much. Every time he thinks about her he weeps with regret. She was the one worthwhile thing to have entered his life; his saving grace; a possible future ... and he blew it.
Annie is similarly in pause mode. However hard she tries, she can’t help feeling some disillusionment with her life. It’s not just Jack, it’s everything. Of course, he was yet another reminder of how vulnerable she is to the wrong kind of man. “Will I never learn?” she thinks bitterly. Perhaps once justice has taken it’s course and Jack and his odious partner are behind bars, she can move on. Somehow she doubts it though. This was more than a fling - it was the real thing, and she knows it. It’ll take a long while to erase The Lad from her life.