Somebody's Doodle

by Nikki Attree

  Next there is a somewhat lighter interlude, as Pauline is escorted into the interview room, looking disheveled. Robert switches on the tape recorder and again records the date and details of who is present. “Eight thirty am. Interview with Pauline Smith, charged with being an accomplice to a dog napping ...” D.C. Forrest smiles, and nods. Robert continues: “... and conspiracy to extort a ransom.”

  “Why did ya ‘ave to drag me ‘ere so bleedin early?” Pauline moans. “I’ve got a muvver of a ‘angover, and I ain’t even ‘ad me brekkie.”

  “I do apologise, Mrs Smith” Robert replies. “If it’s any consolation, I completely agree with you - it is ridiculously early, and I’m also looking forward to my breakfast. So the sooner we can clear up this missing dogs malarky, the sooner we can all have brunch.” He addresses the policeman in the corner of the room: “constable, could you bring Mrs Smith a cup of tea, and while you’re at it, two cups of strong coffee for myself and D.C. Forrest.”

  Turning back to Pauline he tries to regather his thoughts, but frankly it’s difficult when confronted by such a comical elder stateswoman of the criminal fraternity. “Now where was I ... ah yes, it is indeed far too early, but this shouldn’t take long. So, if you could just confirm your role in this little heist ...”

  Pauline shrugs, so Robert reminds her: “I believe that you were just the messenger?”

  She shrugs again. Robert smiles sardonically, and continues: “... and as they say: ‘don’t shoot the messenger’.”

  D.C. Forrest giggles, and behind the window Annie can’t help grinning either.

  Robert reverts to his serious detective tone and ploughs on: “we know that you have collaborated with your son in the past ...”

  “That thieving scumbag!”

  “Yes, precisely. And we have a witness ...” he glances down at his notes, “a Mrs Hamilton-Cooper, who remembers you returning her dog: Angus, after it had gone missing, presumed stolen, from Hampstead Heath ...”

  Annie gasps. It all starts to make sense now, and her opinion of Jack darkens by the minute. “Lying bastard!” she thinks to herself bitterly.

  “ ... in exchange for a two thousand pound reward” Robert adds.

  Pauline snorts: “yeah, that stuck-up cow wouldn’t even give me ‘nuff cash for the ride ‘ome. But I soon sorted ‘er.”

  The two detectives give each other knowing looks. This is proving every bit as easy as Robert suspected. They should have it sewn up in time for an early lunch, and he can be back chasing proper villains by the afternoon.

  “So, Mrs Smith, let’s cut to the chase, so to speak.” He summarises: “I think we can say that you and your son have previous form, as far as stealing dogs goes. And I’m confident that once we’ve spoken to your most recent victim: Mrs Parker-Smyth, we’ll be able to access CCTV footage and make a positive identification of you delivering the ransom notes.”

  “Ha, I don’t fink so” Pauline says smugly. “I waz disguised in me granny gear, and nobody would know me wearing that crap. I mean, look at me: do I look like a granny, like?”

  Robert looks at D.C. Forrest, and again they struggle not to corpse. “Well, thank you for your time, Mrs Smith. Interview terminated at eight forty-five am. Enjoy your breakfast.” He turns off the tape recorder.

  “Is that it then?” Pauline asks, looking a little surprised. “I waz thinking that I’d be seein’ all me old mates in ‘Olloway today.”

  “We’ll be in touch shortly regarding your court appearance, Mrs Smith” D.C. Forrest adds, “but for the moment, yes, you’re free to go home.”

  Pauline looks crestfallen. “The nick is my ‘ome from ‘ome, ya know. They do a nice cuppa in there. Better than this crap.” She bangs the half finished mug of milky police tea down on the table and stomps out of the room.

  * * *

  Robert joins Annie in the room behind the one-way window, and they share a moment together. “I can see why you like your job so much” he says to his sister. “Dealing with comediennes like her must make it all worthwhile. I mean, people pay good money to see much worse acts than her. She’s wasting her life trying to make it as a rubbish criminal. She should have been a standup comic.”

  Annie agrees with him, up to a point: “yes, OK Rob. Very funny. She is quite a character, I agree, but don’t let’s forget what they did to their victims. I witnessed the effect it had on Elizabeth’s teenage daughter, having her dog snatched. Not to mention Gizmo’s owner, Nikki - I gather that she was absolutely distraught, and was just about to board a plane from Tenerife, when we got her dog back.”

  “I take your point” Robert says, chastened. “People do think of their pets as part of the family, and it’s great that you’ve found your niche helping to recover them, but I need to get back to dealing with some human hostage situations. So, let’s see who’s next to face the Spanish Inquisition ...”

  He presses a button on the console, activating the talk-back to the interview room, where his colleague is sitting waiting patiently. “D.C. Forrest, who’s up next for our good-cop-bad-cop routine?”

  A pause while the detective consults his notes. “It’s Mr Jack, alias ‘The Lad’, Jones sir.”

  This is the moment that Annie has been both dreading and longing for, as she searches for an explanation from Jack and closure to their relationship. She feels herself start to shake as Jack is led into the interview room, but the dread is soon to be replaced with bitterness and anger.

  Robert joins his colleague sitting opposite Jack, switches on the tape recorder, and once again records the date, time, and participants. Then he gets down to business. “Well now, Mr Jones, I believe this is the first time that we’ve had the pleasure of meeting you. So, unlike your accomplices, who we’d probably describe as ‘hardened criminals’, you must be relatively new to this game. What made an intelligent young man like yourself choose crime as a career?”

  Jack is sitting with his head in his hands. Everything about him reeks of despair. Watching from behind the one-way window Annie almost feels sorry for him, but sympathy is soon replaced by anger again, as she reminds herself of the way he betrayed her.

  The Lad mutters something inaudible, and Robert asks him to speak up. “I needed to support my mother” Jack says sadly. “I realise now that it wasn’t a clever choice of direction.”

  “I see” says the detective inspector, “and so, are you ready to tell us about your latest escapade with our mutual friend Flash ‘Arry and his master criminal mother?”

  “Shouldn’t that be mistress criminal, sir?” D.C. Forrest points out, before Jack can reply.

  The Lad ignores the interruption and tells the detectives that yes, he is indeed ready to confess, that he’s full of remorse, and that he wants to plead guilty. He starts by admitting to stealing Angus from the Heath, and being the ‘brains’ behind the operation.

  Robert: “that was probably a relatively straightforward choice, given what we know about your partner.” D.C. Forrest smiles at his boss’ wit.

  Jack ploughs on, unsmilingly, desperate to get it all off his chest. As he unloads his confession onto the tape for the two detectives, a feeling of peace gradually envelopes him. He first felt it in the car park yesterday, when he realised that the game was up for them, and that he actually wanted to be caught so that he could finally move on. Now Stoke Newington police station is another Road to Damascus moment11 for him.

  He tells them how he staked out Elizabeth’s house, becoming irritated by the way she and her daughter treated their dog; how he and Harry nearly managed to grab Doodle from the garden before she was moved to the dog hotel; how he visited Wags in disguise ...

  Annie feels her stomach churn at this revelation. Now she knows for sure that her suspicions were justified when she visited Wags and questioned Jennifer, the pretty receptionist. She feels like rushing next door, bursting into the interview, and confronting Jack by screaming “so you did screw that girl in the dog hotel then!” to his face.

  Una
ware of his hidden audience, or her distress, the Lad presses on with his confession. He tells them how, when they broke into Doodle’s room at Wags, they found two identical dogs; how Harry had become increasingly impatient and violent towards their hostages; how he had to protect them from his partner; where the idea for the fake blood photo came from; and how Elizabeth had surprised him by asking them to collaborate with her to prolong the hostage situation ...

  D.C. Forrest looks up suddenly from his note-taking. Robert rocks back in his chair, his brow furrowed. “Hang on a sec. What did you just say?”

  “Well, as I said, I was really quite amazed when she replied to our second note by threatening us and demanding that we did what she wanted us to do.”

  Robert: “and what was that, exactly?”

  “Basically, to collaborate with her in turning the hostage situation into a beneficial publicity stunt” Jack replies, cooly.

  “And you expect us to believe this?” D.C. Forrest asks, incredulously.

  A hint of a bitter smile plays on Jack’s lips. “No I don’t, and I wouldn’t have believed it either, but I have proof.”

  The two detectives look at each other, each trying to out-arch his colleague’s eyebrows. “Go on” says Robert, suddenly becoming more interested than he has been all morning.

  “I thought something like this might happen, so I’ve been keeping these in my pocket ...” Jack says, unfolding several scraps of paper and spreading them out on the table. The detectives stare at them in bemusement.

  “Well I never” D.C. Forrest thinks to himself, “this is a bit of a turn up for the book.”

  “Just when I was thinking the case was all a bit open-and-shut, now I’m not so sure that we’ll have it wrapped up by lunchtime” Robert thinks. Out loud he says: “for the purposes of the tape, the prisoner has produced three pieces of paper. Two are typed or printed, and one is handwritten. These will be treated as evidence, and labelled exhibits A, B, and C.”

  D.C. Forrest turns to the uniformed officer standing in the corner of the room. “Was the prisoner searched yesterday, constable?” he asks, in a reproving tone.

  The policeman blushes slightly, and replies that yes, of course he was. He did indeed find some pieces of paper in his pocket, but didn’t bother to read them as they were rather busy at the time, trying to “restrain” the other prisoner.

  “I see” says Robert with a sigh, speed-reading the notes on the table and shuffling them into some kind of logical order. “For the purposes of the tape, exhibit A is the handwritten note, which I shall read aloud now ...”

  ‘OK. You know my name, and my daughter’s, and you know where I live ...

  But I know who YOU are, and where YOU live.

  I know this because we got your messenger on CCTV camera, and our security man followed PAULINE to her house.’

  Behind the one-way window, Annie gasps. “Aha. A turn up for the book indeed” D.C. Forrest mutters under his breath, as Robert continues reading out Elizabeth’s note:

  ‘So this is what you’re going to do:

  Keep the dogs for one more week, and send me some more photos. Make it look like you are hurting them, but DON’T HARM THEM.

  Put some fake blood on Gizmo, NOT ON DOODLE or my daughter will be upset.

  IF you do EXACTLY as instructed, my film company will pay you £10K when the dogs are returned.

  That is all we are prepared to pay, and you will not receive a penny more.

  The money will come from our publicity budget, and we will require you to sign a receipt specifying that the fee is for providing specialist promotional services (and is therefore tax deductible) ...’

  Jack interrupts at this point, and explains that this is why he shook Elizabeth’s hand and gave her a piece of paper when she handed over the money - it was the receipt that she demanded.

  “I see” says Robert, and continues to read the rest of the note aloud, for the tape:

  ‘As long as the dogs are returned unharmed, we will take no further action. But please note that I cannot be held responsible for further legal action taken by others outside of my control.

  If you don’t agree to this, Pauline will be arrested immediately and you won’t get a penny.’

  There’s silence in the interview room. Next door, Annie is also gripped by Jack’s revelations about Elizabeth. After a long pause, Jack breaks the tense silence: “so, that was Elizabeth’s handwritten reply to our second note. As you see, the fake blood photo was actually her idea.”

  “I see” Robert says (he says that quite a lot, I know. It’s a bit of a catch phrase in fact). “So what was your reaction to her threats and demands?”

  “Well, obviously I realised that she had us by the short-and-curlies and banged-to-rights etcetera, so I decided that we had to work with her. But I knew that I couldn’t tell Harry. I mean, God knows what he’d have done if I’d shown him her note. There’s certainly no way that he’d handle the negotiations. So I organised the photo shoot as best I could, and then I wrote two versions of our third ransom note. The one I showed to Harry just threatened Elizabeth, like our previous two notes, and the other one was the real reply to her note. Then I put both notes in the envelope, with the fake blood photo, and gave it to Pauline to deliver.”

  “I see” Robert says (surprise, surprise). “And this is your reply to her?” he asks, picking up one of Jack’s typed scraps of paper and showing it to him.

  “Yep, that’s it” the Lad replies.

  Robert: “for the purposes of the tape, I shall now read out exhibit B ...”

  ‘Elizabeth - OK, you win. We’ll do what you ask.

  Here’s the photo that you wanted. I hope it’s realistic enough for you.

  Along with the fake blood pic I’m also enclosing a fake ransom note, just in case you need more fake nastiness for your PR campaign.

  By the way, I think what you’re doing is disgusting. Pretending that the dogs are being harmed to get you more publicity is sick. You are very lucky to be dealing with someone who actually loves dogs.

  OK what we did was wrong. I know that now. But you have everything, and we have very little. I want a better life, just like you already enjoy.’

  There’s a pause once again as everyone digests this, but Jack has one more ace up his sleeve: “by the way, I also kept copies of the e-mail exchange I had with her when we were organising the hostage exchange.“

  “I see” says D.C. Forrest, looking knowingly at his boss. He picks up the last piece of paper and shows it to the Lad. “So, this is the printout?”

  The Lad confirms that yes, that’s correct. D.C. Forrest decides that it’s his turn for a dramatic rendition. “Exhibit C appears to be a print out of an exchange of e-mails. The first is sent from a scruffylad@hotmail account ...”

  A sharp intake of breath from Annie as painful memories are replayed.

  D.C. Forrest reads out the message that Jack sent from the internet cafe, giving Elizabeth the location for their meeting.

  Forrest continues: “the reply is sent from an elizabeth_parker-smyth @cutting_edge_films.” He reads her tetchy e-mail out aloud:

  ‘Tomorrow is tricky for me. I have an important breakfast meeting. Can you reschedule our rendezvous for the following morning?’

  D.C. Forrest: “the sender of the first e-mail then replies to the reply ...” He reads out Jack’s angry final response:

  ‘NO. Listen to me you bitch. Just BE THERE with our f-ing money. Come alone or else you’ll never see the dogs again. THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO SEE YOUR DOGS ALIVE.’

  Jack interrupt D.C. Forrest’s dramatic rendition at this point: “I put the threats in for Harry. Like I said, there’s no way that I would have hurt the dogs. Anyway, there’s a final bit there that I never showed him ...”

  “I see” D.C. Forrest says, with the hint of a rye smile. “For the purposes of the tape, I’ll finish my reading of the e-mail exchange ...”

  ‘As agreed: you give me ten grand, I sign y
our fucking receipt, and you get the dogs back. Have a nice life!

  ps I’m looking forward to the film. Gizmo’s definitely got star potential. Not sure about Doodle though.’

  Again there’s a thoughtful silence in the interview room. Next door, Annie is also lost in her thoughts. They swirl around her brain doing their best to confuse her. On the one hand she feels nothing but anger and bitterness for the way that Jack has betrayed her, but these new revelations have added another layer to the whole sorry business.

  Once again Jack is the first to break the silence. He tells them that although he disapproved of Elizabeth’s behaviour, in a way he was actually quite pleased to be collaborating with her. It made the crime feel slightly less serious or harmful. After all, if the dog’s owner actually wanted the publicity, then surely he was doing nothing much wrong by carrying out her instructions?

  The detectives look at each and consider this argument. Robert has come across cases where a relationship develops between a kidnapper and their hostage, but the idea that their ‘family’ might want to prolong the situation to further their own aims is a new one for him. Of course, they’ll have to check Jack’s story out, but on the face of it, it does at least seem to provide The Lad with some mitigating circumstance.

  Annie isn’t sure whether to believe Jack either. After all, he’s proved himself to be a very convincing liar, but she can’t help but be impressed by how clever his defence strategy is. She decides that, on balance, she hopes that he is telling the truth. Not least because she’s intrigued to discover whether her private investigator instincts about Elizabeth were correct. So, she’s keen to hear the producer confront these new allegations, and wondering how she’ll wriggle out.