by Nikki Attree
Lord Longbottom retires to the magistrates’ antechamber to consider verdicts, sentences, and take some light refreshments. He might still make it to his club, but probably just for a post-work sherry, rather than afternoon tea. If only that damn film producer woman hadn’t been involved, the case would have been over and done with hours ago. He decides that she needs to be taught a lesson, along with the odious Mr Smith and his nightmare of a mother. He has rather more sympathy for Mr Jones, and decides to go relatively easy on him, in the hope that he’ll see the error of his ways.
The magistrate finishes his tea and deliberations, and strides through the door into the courtroom. He glares sternly at the defendants in the dock, and bangs his gavel on the desk. JC orders them to rise, and LL addresses them one by one:
“Mr Harry Smith, your claim of innocence and plea of 'not guilty' were clearly figments of your fertile imagination. I find you guilty.”
Harry scowls and mutters threats under his breath, as LL continues with his damming assessment: “you have wasted the court’s time, tried to shift the blame onto your partner-in-crime, and shown absolutely no remorse. In fact, you actually seem to enjoy torturing animals, and had to be prevented from carrying out further horrific acts of cruelty by Mr Jones. Let nobody be in any doubt about the severity of this crime. It may perhaps appear somewhat frivolous compared to say kidnapping, but as anyone who owns a dog will tell you, they are as much part of the family as any human member.” There’s a murmur of agreement in the gallery, particularly from those with dogs, but it’s not significant enough to require the umpire’s intervention.
“As a dog lover myself, I intend to make an example of you, to deter others from thinking that this is an easy, victimless crime. You are a perennial offender, and a menace to society. I sentence you to a minimum of one year At Her Majesty's Pleasure.”
Harry shouts abuse at the bench, ludicrously demanding a retrial, and the police constable has to restrain him. There’s not much reaction from the gallery - the verdict and sentence were predictable.
LL moves on to Pauline: “Mrs Smith, like your son you have shown no remorse, but unlike him you have been sensible and pleaded guilty. The defense have argued that you were merely the messenger, and as I believe the popular saying has it: ‘don’t shoot the messenger’.”
A few embarrassed giggles greet the magistrate’s attempt at humour. JC scowls menacingly, and LL continues, oblivious: “as merely the courier, your part would indeed have been relatively minor, had you not opened the envelope and become fully aware of the crime. At that point you could have tried to get your son and his partner to release their hostages, but you didn’t. The defense maintains that once you discovered the contents of the envelope, you did in fact decline to do any more deliveries, but I suspect that this had more to do with the unreasonably low reward you were promised, than any pangs of conscience.”
This time the umpire allows a Mexican wave of amusement to wash around the court. As it subsides, LL sums up: “Mrs Smith, I suspect that a custodial sentence is no deterrent, but because of your guilty plea I am imposing a tariff of one month in Holloway.”
Pauline looks relieved, and mutters: “yes, result!” She’s already looking forward to renewing old acquaintances, and getting a decent cup of tea in her “‘ome from ‘ome”.
Now the magistrate turns to Jack. “Mr Jones, you too have pleaded guilty, but unlike your codefendants, you have apologised for your behaviour, and appear sincere in your wish to reform your life.”
Sympathetic murmurs from the gallery. Annie blinks back the tears, and Jack looks regretfully at his feet. But LL isn’t ready to pardon him: “the case against you, however, is no less serious. You were clearly the brains behind this crime, since it is obvious that Mr Smith is somewhat lacking in that department.”
He ignores the ripple of laughter, and presses on: “as such, you must take much of the responsibility. I have noted the defense’s case that you were merely carrying out the instructions of your supposed victim, Mrs Parker-Smyth, however I consider this largely irrelevant.”
The prosecutor gives LL a glance of approval, and looks at the defence barrister with an annoying “I-told-you-so” smirk.
“I do indeed consider Mrs Parker-Smyth’s behaviour to be despicable, and I will be dealing with her shortly, but it doesn’t excuse yours, Mr Jones. After all, you had already instigated the theft, and were actively threatening her, before she decided to promote you from dognapper to a ‘specialist promotional services professional’. Moreover, there were more victims involved - her own daughter being one, and the owner of the second dog, Gizmo, being another.”
LL pauses, takes a sip of the colorless liquid pretending to be water, and continues: “to balance this, there is the mitigating factor that you looked after the dogs well while they were in your possession. As an owner of hounds myself, I find that this betrays a decent side to your nature.”
The defense barrister smiles, and ticks himself off for not making more of this.
“I note that this is your first offense, Mr Jones, and I do strongly urge you to abandon crime as a career. Perhaps, indeed, you can put your newfound love of animals to good use in the future. But your immediate future will be spent in a suitable prison, where you will have plenty of time to consider the error of your ways, and your future options. I sentence you to a six month custodial sentence.”
Jack has been listening with his head bowed. As Lord Longbottom announces the sentence, he raises his head and nods slightly.
“Well, that‘s that then” Annie thinks to her herself. “It’s over, and I can move on.” But this feeling of closure is tempered by the bitter taste of regret, wasted opportunity, an abandoned future together. It hurts, and there are tears in her eyes. It’s going to take her a while to get over him.
Finally the magistrate asks Elizabeth to get to her feet. She does so reluctantly, as always keen to get the first word in: “look, I need to leave right now. You may not have noticed the media camped outside your courtroom, but I ...”
LL smashes his gavel into the desk with real venom this time: “silence! Mrs Parker-Smyth, we have heard how you colluded with Mr Jones to prolong this crime for your own selfish aims. You wasted police time, and conspired to pervert the course of justice. If there’s one thing I loath, it’s perverters of the course of justice.”
Elizabeth splutters: “did you just call me a pervert? I must object in the strongest possible ...”
Kaboom! LL’s gavel explodes into the desk again. “Shut Up Mrs Parker-Smyth! I have decided to impose a community sentence on you. This will mean a duty to work one hundred and twenty hours unpaid in the community, for a charity, supervised by a probation officer.”
Elizabeth’s shocked silence doesn’t last long. “Look, I’m sorry, OK? Can’t I just pay a fine or something?”
LL smiles sardonically. “Yes, I’m sure you would prefer that, madam, but it’s too late for your bogus contrition. Now, I have been considering the appropriate form that this community sentence should take, given that the point is to achieve restorative justice, compensation for the victims of crime, and reformation of the offender. I strongly suspect that you are not a true dog lover, and that you purchased Doodle initially as an accessory for your ‘designer lifestyle’, and then realised that you could exploit her in your production. So I have decided that you need a more hands-on ... (I believe that is the correct term in modern usage? JC nods) ... a more hands-on experience of Man’s Best Friend. I sentence you to work one hundred and twenty hours cleaning the kennels in a suitable dog refuge."
For once Elizabeth is lost for words. She’s quite simply flabbergasted. The gallery erupt in cheers. LL bangs his gavel on the desk. JC barks: “silence in court! All rise.” LL hurries backstage, already eagerly anticipating a sherry at his club, and Robert whispers: “game set, and match!” to his sister.
A scuffle breaks out as the defendants are escorted from the dock. Harry is taken down to the
cells,18 kicking and screaming at Jack. Annie watches sadly. For a brief moment their eyes meet, then she shakes her head as Jack is lead away.
* * *
Elizabeth stumbles out of the courtroom to meet a barrage of questions and popping flashbulbs. The story is hot news again, but this time it’s definitely not a case of ‘all news is good news’.
“Do you have any comment to make, Elizabeth? About being called a ‘pervert’ by the magistrate, for instance?” one tabloid reporter yells at her.
“No, no, you’ve got that wrong. Misquoted him” she answers, trying her best to retain her usual composure under media scrutiny. It’s difficult though.
“Can you tell us why you colluded with the dognappers to promote your film? Doesn’t that go way beyond the usual marketing bollox?” another shouts. “Surely you can’t expect us to take you seriously after that little scam?”
Elizabeth is flustered now. She tries damage limitation: “look guys, you know how it is in this business. Yes, it was a publicity stunt - and a dammed good one, if I say so myself. Look at how long you ran with the story.”
“What about your daughter? How does she feel about you ordering the dognappers to fake photos of her dog being tortured?” yells the reporter from ‘Dog’s Today’.
“No comment” Elizabeth replies, setting some kind of precedent. This is the first time that the phrase has ever escaped her lips when confronted by the media.
“Are you looking forward to getting your hands even more dirty, cleaning up dog shit in a refuge?” The reporters are circling her, baying like a pack of jackals closing in on wounded prey.
“No comment” she shrieks, repeatedly, desperately looking for an escape.
A taxi pulls up, the door opens, and a voice from inside yells: “get in!” She jumps in, as the paparazzi's cameras are pushed up against the window. Inside are Robert, Annie, Miranda, and a stony silence The taxi speeds off.
Her daughter is crying, and Annie has her arm around her. “I hate you!” Miranda screams at her mother. “I don’t want to go home with you. I’m leaving.”
Elizabeth tries to reason with her: “don’t be silly darling, you’re only fifteen. You can’t just walk out. Where will you go?”
“Wherever. Wadever. I don’t care, as long as it’s away from you!” she yells.
Annie suggests that Miranda stays with her for a few days. To be honest, she could with some company anyway. Miranda agrees, grateful for any chance to escape. They drive the short distance to Hackney in silence.
“Make sure that you look after Doodle better this time” Miranda says to her mother, coldly, as she gets out of the taxi. Annie opens her front door and they disappear inside without so much as a glance back.
17 A DOG IS FOR LIFE
Miranda stays with Annie for the rest of that week, and it turns out to be a good solution for everyone. The teenager absolutely loves Annie’s chaotic house, especially the menagerie. After the designer perfection of her mother’s house, Annie’s relaxed style is heaven. Animals are allowed to roam around freely, and they all seem to get along with each other without the need for a dictator. Miranda helps with feeding and caring for the residents in Annie’s continuously expanding, ongoing refuge for abandoned animals.
It’s good for Annie too, to have sympathetic female company at this low point in her life. She knows that she needs to get over Jack, and also to get her business back on track. Miranda helps with both. They spend plenty of time in Annie’s kitchen chewing the fat (well, a few chocolate biscuits anyway), and sharing their problems.
Annie finds it refreshingly easy to open up to this nonjudgmental teenager. She tells Miranda all about her disastrous relationship with the lecherous lecturer, how she met Jack, and how she’d hoped that they might have a future together.
Miranda’s view is surprisingly mature. She hasn’t forgiven Jack for stealing Doodle and for pretending to torture Gizmo, but she does believe what he said in court: that he always looked after the dogs well. She realises that only Harry really wanted to harm them, and she just doesn’t understand how Jack could ever have teamed up with such a horrible man.
Miranda also finds it hard to forgive Jack for hurting Annie, but she thinks that time will eventually heal the emotional scars, and that with Jack out of circulation they both have plenty of time to think about the future. Miranda is something of a romantic herself. She saw the way that Jack and Annie were looking at each other as he was lead away to start his prison sentence, and she tells Annie that in her opinion it’s not over. She thinks that in time Annie will able to forgive him, and after all, six months isn’t that long to wait for him. Annie isn’t so sure, but she’s grateful for the support.
She tells Miranda the story of how she got into the pet detective business. The teenager listens spellbound as Annie describes her first case: Edna’s missing parrot, and how she later solved the famous Crofts poisoned Yorkshire terrier mystery. Miranda’s enthusiasm for Annie’s “awesome job” is all it takes for Annie to get her mojo back. She realises that while she might not be solving major murder enquiries like her brother, she is certainly reuniting some very distressed people with their much loved pets.
Talking about Annie’s job inevitably leads them to discuss her most recent case, and her most difficult client: Miranda’s mum. They both agree that Elizabeth behaved appallingly. Miranda just can’t believe that her mother could be so callous as to fake photos of the dogs being tortured. Even her idea to limit it to Gizmo (rather than Doodle), to avoid upsetting her daughter, was completely misguided. For Miranda it’s just another example of how little her mother knows, or understands her.
Annie decides to have things out with Elizabeth, and try to help her rebuild her relationship with her daughter. After all, Miranda can’t stay with her for ever, as much as the teenager would love to. So she calls her ex-client, and has a surprisingly frank conversation.
Initially it’s difficult to persuade Elizabeth that she did much wrong. She thinks that Miranda is just being a typical teenager. After all, she got her dog back didn’t she? She tells Annie that OK, yes, the publicity stunt was perhaps a mistake, but if it helps to make the film a success, then she’ll use some of her bonus to buy something expensive for Miranda, or perhaps take her on an exotic holiday.
Annie sighs. She explains, politely but forcibly, that there are some problems money can’t solve. Gaining the respect and trust of her daughter, for instance. This is a fairly novel idea for Elizabeth, but she’s an intelligent woman, and the growing bond between Miranda and this new-age pet detective has not gone unnoticed. Indeed, Elizabeth has been experiencing a few pangs of jealousy. Again, quite a novel feeling for her. Until now, her goals have mainly been oriented towards work, money, success, but perhaps there’s also some validity in Annie’s hippy values. It’s something to think about anyway, and discuss with her daughter.
She tells Annie how much she misses having Miranda around, and she actually sounds genuinely upset. Now Annie feels a bit guilty for harboring the runaway and perhaps splitting up a family. So she suggests that Elizabeth comes round that evening, has a glass of wine with them, and offers some kind of an apology. She will do the rest, and she’s fairly confident that she can persuade Miranda to go home with her mum. For one thing, Miranda has been missing her dog. So perhaps Elizabeth can bring Doodle with her. That should do the trick.
It works. Elizabeth arrives at Annie’s house with Doodle, and a changed attitude to her daughter. The three of them have a truth-and-reconciliation session in Annie’s kitchen, involving a few glasses of wine, some chocolate biscuits, a few tears, and eventually a restoration of friendly relations.
Miranda is ecstatic to be reunited with her furry friend, and Doodle is happy to see her teenage mistress again. She likes Annie’s house - lots of intriguing smells, but she’s not sure about some of the strange creatures wandering around. She can just about tolerate Sparkle, the cat, but the neither-dog-nor-cat dude with the big floppy ears
called Dougal, bouncing around, munching raw carrots ... definitely weird.
Elizabeth thanks Annie for looking after her daughter, promises to stay in touch, and returns to Hampstead with Miranda and Doodle. The pooch still misses Jack, and Gizmo, but the memories are fading, and she is at last getting some attention in the big empty house. Miranda is a changed mistress now, playing with her, taking her for walks, and even Elizabeth becomes more dog friendly, especially when she goes to work at the London Dog Refuge (more about that in just a moment).
Her personal life may be on the mend, but after her day in court and the bad publicity that resulted from it, Elizabeth’s professional life starts to fall apart. She’s just about managed to patch things up with her daughter, with Annie’s help, but she’s no longer flavour of the month at work. Far from it, in fact.
After the live coverage of the dramatic events in the ‘Sleep-A-Lot’ car-park, she was lauded as a hero for outwitting the dastardly criminals, and for getting the dogs back unharmed. Her boss was delighted with all the positive publicity, and as you’ll remember, even jokingly suggested that if he didn’t know better, he might have thought that she’d arranged the whole dognapping thing as a publicity stunt.
When he finds out that actually he didn’t know better, he’s not amused. Incensed would be a more accurate description of his feelings. He severely reprimands her for a whole list of misdemeanors: acting as a ‘loan wolf’ by not getting his approval for her unethical promotional strategy; misuse of company funds - appropriating money from their publicity budget to pay the dognappers for ‘specialist promotional services’; dragging Cutting Edge Films’ good name through the courts; and generally for not seeing the bigger picture.
He reminds her that he was skeptical when she originally pitched the idea of a dog movie. It was always going to be a risky departure from their tried-and-tested genres: blockbuster action movies and romantic comedies. He was prepared to give it a chance because he trusted her. Now he’s not sure that it was the right decision. He tells her that he’s putting the project on hold until the negative publicity dies down, and he warns her that if, rather than when, she does finish the film, it had better be bloody good and a big success, or she’ll be looking for another job.
