Hao Ling is a chemical engineering student at Sydney University. She lives in a small terrace house just off campus in Darlington with two flatmates. And a dog. The flatmates so far yielded no clues, but the dog was my lead. It was a Maltese called - wait for it - Pookie and apparently Hao Ling walked it around the university grounds every night. The engineering and architecture departments were on the Darlington side of King Street and, with the grassy areas, ample pathways and little in the way of road traffic, Hao Ling wasn't the only one who frequented the campus after dark. Every night a cross-section of inner city dwellers could be found: dog walkers who knew each other well and who used the darkened space to stretch canine and human legs. Living in closely crowded terrace houses, the uni was their backyard.

Hao Ling had been walking her dog when she disappeared. It was all I had, so my plan was simple: get a dog, blend in with the locals and see if anyone had seen anything. Sure I could have gone in and flashed my PI badge - the one I bought from a joke shop because my actual Private Investigators Licence was nowhere near as impressive - but I didn't think that I'd get as much out of them as an outsider as I would as one of them. Funny how a dog was all I needed to make me a part of the community. People united over the smallest thing and, once they had, it took a whole lot to pry them apart. That was something I had learned from experience, not Jack Brundle, in my four years as a PI.

Jack took credit for my investigative skills, but some things I had were mine alone. He would call it women's intuition, but I wasn't taking credit for having breasts: it was my brains that bought the bucks in. And every now and again my brawn. Okay, once or twice it was my breasts, but I only shook my booty for clues when I really had to. I figured it was a bad habit to get into: one day my cleavage would not wiggle like moulded jelly but swing side to side like pig carcasses in a meat factory, and if I relied on them as my only investigative technique I would soon be taking a forced retirement. Although I was pretty certain that my jelly cups would be staying well moulded for a while yet.

I say my goodbyes and put Sasha in the car. We drive the short drive from Jack's place in Stanmore, down Salisbury Road, onto King Street and then right onto Cleveland. At the first set of lights I turn right into Shepherd. On my left I see the Rose of Australia - a pub where Jack and I talked business over a shared pizza in the early days. We tried to keep going after it was renovated but it just wasn't the same with its polished concrete floors and overpriced meals. Then Jack started complaining about the price - I think business slowed for him a bit but I didn't want to know, he might suggest teaming up or, worse, me working for him - and we stopped going.

Up Shepherd I turn left into Lander and park. I get out and walk around to the passenger side, where Sasha is doing her impersonation of a kid with ADD. That dog has a sixth sense when it comes to walking. I haven't even grabbed her lead yet, but somehow she knows. I open the door carefully, worried that my little black and white bullet will shoot by me and get lost in this dimly-lit suburb made entirely of back streets. Keeping squirming Sasha in place with one hand, I snap on a lead with the other and end her hopes of escape and a better life. Across the road I can see the open double gates that act as an informal entrance to hundreds of student commuters and cars by day. At night, bollards turn it into a footpath for local residents. We walk down in the dimly lit yellow gloom to the large roller door and warehouse that is civil engineering. My footsteps echo, shadows surround me like a group of school bullies and I am torn between fight and flight.

Ahead I see the sports centre: just up the solid cement steps that hug the landscaping shine spotlights that make any tennis player a star. Sasha is trying to dislocate my shoulder; she must be onto a scent because she is desperate to get somewhere and won't stop whining. I pull back on the lead but, in sympathy to her energy, and a desire to enter the halogen light, I lunge up the steps, taking them two at a time as we race. I stop at the top, pulling Sasha back to me, and look around. I can see a couple with a golden retriever heading in our direction, so I angle slightly to meet them. They are middle aged, middle class, a little fat around the middle. Their dog, with the mad energy of a puppy, starts pulling at the lead when it sees us coming.

The likelihood of their involvement in Hao Ling's disappearance is middling, so I let them go. Sasha and I cross another road-turned-pathway and walk onto the large grassy area that by day supports the bottoms of a future generation of doctors, lawyers and taxi drivers. I peer across the gloom and see several people with dogs: a young couple nearby kicking a ball for a short squat little dog of indeterminate breed; walking away from us is a man with an enormous white malamute and an Old Yeller; coming up through the little avenue of trees is another couple - this one older with a pair of Dalmatians.

The girl turns to look at me. She has straight dark hair and a kind of dazed expression. Oh no. She smiles and says it's fine. The guy looks over and is wearing the same expression. He nods in greeting. I inwardly groan. Stoners. What's the use? I plunge on anyway.

It takes a few minutes to coax Sasha out of the water and, when I'm finished, the couple and their Dalmatians are gone. A shame, but I think I have too much information already. I put the lead on Sasha and drag her away with me, my mood suddenly dark as the uni gloom. We cross a road and head down a path. The architecture library is on my left and on my right is a statue, embracing a keg thoughtfully supplied by the Engos Social Group.

I turn left and walk along the covered footpath until I see steps leading down to a small area enclosed by looming buildings. There is a series of tall rocks in a circle surrounded by a garden. Sasha runs down and into the foliage: tall palms and other big-leafed plants that don't match the Stonehenge artwork. I climb up a rock and sit with my legs dangling.

"Don't tell me your problems," I say, tough as a good PI should be. "Just send her home. Tell her to call her parents. And get a day job. I don't care. But I'm getting paid for this. So hand over Hao Ling and I'll hand over Sasha. I'll wait for her parents to call me."

Finally, after almost a week of gumshoeing, I turn up a lead. It comes in the form of a contact of Jack's and mine, Sam Shalom - don't ask about the name, I'm sure he got it from a movie and thinks it gives him cred. Sam doesn't make my list of reliable informers but has a mention on my backup list, which was just what I needed on this occasion. Apparently, Sam told me, he was meeting with a 'client' of his - Sam was in the business of supplying and gathering information for people who didn't like to get their hands dirty - at Le Meridien Hotel on Jamison St in the city.

Le Meridien is a spiffy bar and hotel with live music, impeccable service, complimentary snack food, real towels in the toilets - and the last place Sam would have expected to see his old acquaintance Jack Brundle with a beautiful young woman. Out of curiosity, Sam told me, he watched Jack and Hao Ling share a few cosy drinks and then followed them to the Menzies. Now, a fortuitous phone call later, here I sit: with the train-fare beggars, rats and the vibration in my feet and bum as a train rattles by underneath me reminding me where I am. Wynyard Park, directly above Wynyard Station and across the road from the Menzies, watching a hand-held screen projecting images from a camera poking its head out of my handbag and looking across at the hotel.

I am momentarily distracted from the small screen in my hand by a nimble-footed rat in my peripheral vision. It skips in and out of s garden bed and flits under the benches that surround the perimeter of the park. I have been sitting here for over five hours and it's not the first one I've seen. After the two-hour lunchtime rush they came. Poking their heads out of the flower borders, in singles or families to race the pigeons and seagulls for the best morsels. All the wildlife here seems healthy and well nourished, which I tell myself is a good thing.

So, amongst the rodents, I sit here waiting. As opposed to waiting in the hotel lobby, where it gets difficult to explain my presence for more than an hour or two. Casing a joint is a long distance affair these days. Technology plays a big part in the life of the modern PI and not many of my colleagues Marlowe it like they once did. With the zoom lens pointing across the bus-filled Carrington Street to the hotel entrance, I can sit and pretend to read The Da Vinci Code while watching people come and go on my screen. And I guess, looking young and innocent for my age - thirty-four with long, straight and still naturally-coloured brown hair (a few highlights don't count), blue eyes that I have perfected widening variously in surprise, ignorance and innocence, and pushing medium height and build - who wouldn't believe I had the time and mental apathy to stay here reading in this scungy, pseudo-park for five hours?

During these five hours, approximately four Anglo-Asian couples of the right sexes have grabbed my attention. Three times, closer inspection reveals they are not my couple: the age difference is not big enough and neither is the size difference. Once I have to look twice as I see Jack's middle-aged spread, close-cropped and thinning brown hair and poor taste in clothes. (Though after almost a week of looking for Jack and Hao Ling, I have realised that those characteristics are not as individual as you might think.) The fourth couple had an even greater age difference than my targets, and the young girl's short dress and high, high heels make me question the nature of that relationship - it hints at being more professional and a little less personal than I am looking for.

The rat I've been watching suddenly darts back into the garden bed and I know why it's going. I too sense the change that signals the end of the working day. It's not so much the noise - though there is some of that as the masses of leather soles and high heels travel inexorably toward their tickets home - but more a vibration in the air. Where only moments ago there was relative peace and quiet for the CBD, now there is a disturbance in the calm: a cloud of tension and metaphorical elbows. I sigh without meaning to - caught in the mood - and try to huddle further into my book. I even find myself starting to read it - something I haven't been tempted to do all day - and fight the urge. If I don't stay focused on the screen, I might as well have stayed at home. And it's a little too late in the day to be thinking that way. I concentrate and the next time I look up, there is relative quiet again.

This too will be short-lived: it's only a matter of time until the six o'clock commuters follow where the fivers have just been. This is my curtain call and I start packing up my things. Another fruitless day: after the last week I'm in danger of developing scurvy.

I will go back to Hao Ling's share house and talk to the girls again - I didn't get the impression of expensive tastes and it's time to dig a little deeper. I can come back later after I walk my ransomee Sasha and try again. Perhaps the promise of another evening of cocktails will lead them to make an appearance.

Every time I let myself think about it, Jack's metamorphosis boggles my brain: could mid life really change the person I know into the one sipping over-priced drinks in over-large glasses at Le Meridien? My Jack had taught me skills like how to keep emotionally detached from your work and where to find the cheapest pub meals in the greater Sydney area. His watering hole of choice was once the Century Tavern - a two-storey dive with fantastic winding stairs on Liverpool Street that catered to the most diverse range of clientele an establishment possibly could (except maybe a brothel, but my tales of them are for another day). A wonderful place, the Century; you could bring your kebabs and rub shoulders with suits, students and all the other s's that make up the rich plethora that is the big 'S': Sydney. Right near the 'entertainment' end of George Street, it was the perfect spot for a PI to hide, wait for a contact at two in the morning, or trawl for information. But the sad truth is that, much like Jack, the Century has been made over in recent times and its character and culture have been lost to a cleaner and more discerning customer.

Because I'm going to Redfern I'm able to jump on a train the minute I push my ticket through the slot in the turnstile and walk through. I mash myself between bodies into a comparable standing space in one of the carriages and try not to breathe in. With one hand firmly fixed on my bag I stare out the window and assume the expression. That's the one most people have as they travel in sardine circumstances - part disgust, part acceptance but mostly absence. Repeat after me: I am anywhere but here. I am anywhere but here.

Thus chanting, I mash myself further as I try to move out of the way for people getting on and off at Town Hall. With another stop to go before mine I may end up being served on a plate beside some sausages. The doors close and we chug forward. In a few moments we enter the light and I do feel saved: we are out of the underground and heading to Central. One more mash and shuffle and we're off again, heading past the obsolete Mortuary Station in Regent Street and on to Redfern. As opposed to mashing up, this time I mash out - an interesting process that involves squeezing yourself between the spuds eager to alight and those trying to de-light.

Out through the turnstiles and I am immediately on guard, ready to defend myself from the hazards of the exterior of Redfern Station. Whatever you may have heard about the place, I'm here to disabuse you of those ideas. Sure, upon disembarking you are likely to be asked for money and saying no, or yes, can be a little unpleasant. But I would classify that as a minor inconvenience. The actual, imminent danger you face when exiting Redfern Station is if you are trying to head down Lawson Street towards Sydney Uni at the end of the educational day. Then you better put your head down and thank the gods that you have worn sensible shoes because things are about to get crazy. The scholarly riptide that is hundreds of students flocking to the train after a hard day of coffee, beer and intellectual debate swarms the street and nothing will stem the flow (if you will allow me to mix, shake and stir metaphors). It is only bull-headed determination that will save you from the mindless, unrelenting tide of our future generation.

My career. Something that seems predestined to include Jack Brundle in one form or another for the rest of my days. First as the hard-nosed dick (and I don't mean detective) who trained me back when I was young, dumb and naiave. Back then he taught me valuable skills that I would use for the rest of my life. Now he seems bent on teaching me valuable lessons that I will hold against him for the rest of his life. Here I am, world-wise and sassy as hell, and nothing is supposed to surprise me. Then Jack runs off with a chemical engineering student less than half his age, demands money from her parents to maintain the relationship in a manner to which they have all of a sudden become accustomed, and not even his love for his pooch will make him see reason. He's on a mid-life mission from which I am not sure he will ever return. Hao Ling's parents were right: their only hope is to talk to Hao Ling, who is apparently young, impulsive and easily swayed. The firm parental hand should make her see sense once again. And that will in turn force Jack to return to earth, and to his doggy, who is starting to impose on my enforced hospitality.

I reach the end of Lawson Street and push my way onto Abercrombie. At the shops I seize the opportunity created by a lull in traffic and cross the road, escaping down Shepherd Lane. Peace. I want to inhale my freedom but the knowledge that this inner city air contains a lot more than emancipation stops me and I content myself with a little sigh - and briefly stretching out my arms in an imitation of The Boy Who Could Fly. At the end of the lane I turn left and head along Lander until I reach Shepherd Street and turn right. Here in Darlington it is hard to escape the grey grunge but people try. The line of compressed terraces in Calder Street is testimony to community cooperation to beat out the grey - the row of different and brightly coloured doors try admirably, but chipperly fail. The fact is that the grey is a mosquito net; it drapes over the top of everything, filters the surroundings and takes some of the sting out of the real world.

Down the next block I turn left into Boundary Street; Hao Ling's house is five doors down. She shares with three other Singaporean girls, each studying something as mentally challenging as Hao Ling's chemical engineering and being just as diligent with their parents' bucks.

I am in luck: I knock at the door and Delilah answers. She is a molecular biologist and probably Hao Ling's closest friend in the house. Or at least she's been the most forthcoming. She smiles at me like she wants to please and bobs her head. I nod back at her. "Hello again Delilah. May I come in?"

I am not sure where the sudden dramatics are coming from, but I try again to placate her. "Well, yes, in the beginning we thought she was kidnapped, that's why I was called in. But I have a firm lead now ..." I trail off at Delilah's polite but confused look as something belatedly triggers in my head. Can't call it women's intuition because that should have kicked in and told me something else was up the minute I walked in the door. I pause and look deliberately into Delilah's eyes.

I am starting to get a bad feeling, like KFC on an empty stomach: unsettling and just a bit painful. It's too much of a coincidence for owner and mistress to be taken by separate kidnappers. And why didn't Sam Shalom try to capitalise on his serendipitously won information? Making money was the only reason he ever surfaced from the barrel bottom ... what happened this time?

My feet aren't the only things burning up - I feel my cheeks prickle as I think about how Jack has played me. My only hope now is get home as fast as possible. But after more than five hours sitting in that bloody park, hope is pure indulgence. Still, I hurry back onto Shepherd Street and head towards Cleveland, my eyes scanning for a taxi like a transport-fixated Terminator.

Luckily I am wearing my trusty club sneakers - nicer than running shoes but still do the job - and I leg it up Cleveland and cross City Road. Still no sign of a taxi, so I opt for cutting the corner of Victoria Park to Broadway. In an apparent confirmation of my luck of the day, I still see no sign of a taxi. At the bus stop a number 435 is idling and I decide to jump on board. It will get me to Parramatta Road in the block between Johnston and Annandale Streets, which is good enough for me. I climb onto the crowded bus and find standing room only. Trying not to end up wedged in an armpit, I grab hold of a seat and hang on as our esteemed driver reefs the bus out into peak hour traffic and rolls onwards.

In fifteen toe-tapping minutes I am alighting just up from the Johnston Street junction. Even in the midst of my anxiety and discomfort I can't resist an appreciative smile towards the milk bar just up from the corner. If it has a name I still don't know what it is, though I have been living in the area for years. I'm sure it's still the same as it was fifty years ago when it first opened its doors - and, along with the decor and the man behind the counter, I worry that some of the stock might also be surviving since then. I imagine it has serviced generations of kids with milkshakes in old-fashioned glasses, great big bags of lollies for a penny and a howdy when they walked in the door. As with everything on Parramatta Road, it's covered with the grunge of life in the fast lane and I don't know when the owners gave up washing the windows.

The business of surviving around here is a challenge that most shops in this stretch of Parramatta Road have met without resorting to any new-fangled ideas of commercialism. From the milk bar, to the clothes shop across the road, the butcher up on the next block and the little supermarket, they survive by impersonating wombats. They burrow in deep, stick their bums in the air and blink with surprise when someone enters.

Casting nostalgia for my suburb aside, I hurry up this block of the land that time forgot and turn into the home stretch. Annandale Street. By now I am getting really antsy despite the knowledge that I am inevitably too late, and I run up the last two blocks to my house, thanking the discipline that has me jogging three times a week and doing those appalling fitness classes as my legs carry me easily up the road.

I rent most of the bottom half of a terrace at 64 Annandale Street, Annandale. The top half is what you might call short-term accommodation (if you're generous. If you're realistic you might just say three shitty little rooms and a share bathroom that no one should live in for more than a couple of weeks) and, apart from the share entry way and staircase, the bottom half of this palace is mine. Despite the fact that I can hear every single person coming and going and going and coming, and that the landlord likes to collect the rent in person at precisely 7.30 pm on Tuesdays, it is my piece of paradise and I love it. I have a bedroom, a separate kitchen and lounge, which includes a beautiful bay window where I spend most of my leisure time, adequate bathroom and most of the backyard. (The remainder of the yard is given over to landlord storage and is the biggest pile of crap that I have ever seen.) The backyard is the current residence of one ransomee dog: Sasha. And, as well as berating myself for being so gullible I could be set up by Sam Shalom, and waste more hours than I want to think about sitting outside the bloody Menzies, I am currently berating myself for not following good kidnapper protocol and locking my victim up behind better security than a side gate that Jack knows perfectly well how to jump.

I don't bother letting myself in the two doors that lead to my flat, but instead race down the side of the terrace and pull myself up over the gate. And where I should be greeted by Sasha running up and barking wildly, first in territorial fright and then in greeting, I get silence.

I slump at the other side of the gate, energy spent. He played me and I fell for it. The bastard! I try to be mad at Jack but can only be pissed off at myself. I was set up and totally fell for it. I feel like the embarrassment will send me melting into the footpath and before I know it I have slid to the ground, back against the gate. I kick myself in the back of the ankle but the physical is no more help than the metaphorical. I am torn between standing up and doing a tribal dance of frustration, or staying where I am and liquefying. I indulge the feeling for about 30 more seconds and then I hoist myself up, pat myself down and walk to my back door.

I am going to look on the positive side if it bloody well kills me, and the fact is that what I have now is unplanned free time. And the best thing I can do with that is take the night off. I will forget about this whole sorry mess and call Greg Cooper. Greg is an old friend and a new flame - if we can make it past this kindling stage. If he's free tonight, this will be our third date. I have known him for years, but he went to work in Melbourne for a while and I've just caught up with him again. The fact is, we ran into each other by accident and had this amazing getting-to-know-you-again day that was unlike anything I have ever experienced. Coffee led to lunch, led to a walk around Circular Quay and hours of talking and sharing and all that crap. We finished the day with a beautiful kiss and then neither of us called each other for over a week. It was like we were in danger of jinxing the connection and couldn't bring ourselves to find out what it would be like after that day. Greg did call eventually though and we tentatively went out again. It was nice and careful, and we agreed to take things slowly.

"So, it turned out that Jack had run off with Hao Ling. Jack. Of all people. He thinks he's in love. So I did what any good detective would do and held his dog to ransom. You give me yours and I'll give you mine. But even that didn't lure him out of the woodwork. Then a contact - a slimy, dirty, low life contact - tells me he's seen Jack, only it turns out to be a set-up and now Jack's kidnapped his dog back, Hao Ling grabbed her dog and who knows where they're going now? I thought I would clear this case in a couple of hours and now I'm back to where I started. They could have gone anywhere." I pause, finally, and wish Greg wasn't so damn understanding. I didn't want to talk about this. I open my mouth to tell him so, but he comes out with an incredibly sensible statement that gives me pause.

And while I was talking I realised something else. I may be pissed off at myself, and at Jack Brundle and Co, but I'm just as angry with weaselly Sam Shalom. It's time to show that little bottom feeder who makes the rules in our relationship. And what happens when anyone messes with Mel Crompton. Okay, overly dramatic, I know. But it's a question of pride - I need to get some back, and he's an easy target.

I wake up the next day feeling substantially better. I have a plan and a bit of perspective. But I also have the whole day to kill - there's no point looking for Sam until after dark. And that leaves a trip to the office for some pencil pushing, of the electronic variety.

A private investigator needs an office to meet and greet clients, smoke cigars and hang their hats, and I have mine. But making my budget and my need for a respectable meeting place agree has led to something of a compromise. What I don't have is a dark corridor, mood lighting, a hatstand and my name stencilled on a glass-paned door. What I do have is shared office space in Balmain with a group of various independent contractors. No, I don't mean hit persons for hire or anything quite as exciting; rather a graphic designer, an accountant, an editor and myself all share the rent. We don't have our own offices exactly, just partitions and desks, but we have a great street address and two meeting rooms that seem to be available whenever someone needs them.

When I get there I sit down heavily at my PC. Every PI I know uses a PC and I think this expanding world of initialisms is just dandy. I open a spreadsheet and get pushing. Having an accountant share the office space is handy at tax time, but it's also demanding. She has broken me in to filling out my finances every week - all the comings and goings accounted for, invoices sent on time and receipts kept in one place. Her nazi approach can be annoying but since I met Julie I have never had a tax bill, so I can't complain. I see there's an outstanding invoice for some work I did chasing a cheating wife. Somehow I knew when I met that client that his wife wasn't the only one who would cheat. I sigh and write a note to myself to give him a reminder call.

At five I am ready to eat led so I call it a day. Actually, I call it something rather more colourful than a day, as I get to my feet, stretch my cramped, over-computered muscles and get the heck out of there. I am still too early to find Sam, but must leave now, so I slowly walk back home and then shower away the stink of car fumes.

Three hours later I am clean and dressed, the house is tidy, I have made some calls to get information on my informant, talked to my mum in Brisbane, fed the imaginary cat and I'm pacing the floor, so I decide to hit the town and see what I can find. I've been told that Sam is likely to be hanging around Chinatown; he is doing some work for a big wig Chinese client, according to my sources. Of course, these are the same sources that have recently proven to be entirely unreliable but I think Chinatown is a good place to start: I can get a bite to eat and menace Sam all in a three-block radius.

I grab a bus into the city and get out on George Street near Goulburn. I plan to visit the Chinatown mall and start checking out restaurants. From there I can circle my way out until I have checked them all. That's the plan, but my luck seems to have changed and as I walk down Goulburn I spot Sam through the window of BBQ King. This is actually incredible luck: the chances of seeing anyone between the ducks and signage of the grotty window are slim at best. But there he is, stuffing his face with a Peking duck pancake and oblivious to having been made. I follow a group of people into the restaurant and stay behind them until they pass his table for two. I slip into the empty seat (all class) and he blinks up at me. Ahhh, I savour the moment and give him a menacing glare.

I wait for him to start talking, letting the silence tell him what I know. I see his options race through his mind through those marvellously clean and revealing windows of his and wait until he decides to fess up. His only option, considering I am more than ready to rough him up if eyeball menacing doesn't work. He can see that in my eyes, I'm sure, because after a moment he very politely offers me a pancake. I glare a moment longer, but who can resist that crispy duck, sweet sauce and tasty pancake combination? I nod to his offer and he signals a waiter to bring more duck. "And a Crown," I tell him and he passes my beer order on to the waiter as well. After their exchange, Sam looks reluctantly back at me and I smile my killer whale smile. Big, wide and full of teeth.

"How did you ... ummm ... get on?" he asks and for a moment I am tempted to reach over the table and tear him a new one. He is spared my wrath by the prompt delivery of my beer and food. I smile up at the waiter who places slices of duck, a bowl of sauce, shallot wrapped in a piece of chilli and pancakes on the table. He picks up a pancake with his two spoons and places it on my plate. This is followed by carefully placed duck, shallot and sauce. I resist the urge to tell him to bugger off, I can do it myself. As many times as I eat Peking duck, the etiquette is lost on me: do they create your first pancake because of some important tradition that would be highly rude to interrupt, or do they just assume that we stupid Anglos need to be shown what to do? I tap my fingers on the table until the waiter has finished, nod my thanks and wait until he walks away. My urge to pummel Sam is being countered by my urge to eat this delectable morsel in front of me, and my stomach wins.

Sam seems to have sensed my inner conflict and I see him visibly relax as I wrap the small pancake around the duck and take a bite. It is hard to scowl when you are in gustational heaven and I feel my cred slipping a little. With mouth full, I lean forward and reclaim my edge.

I don't reply: I'm thinking. Jack hasn't gone to Canberra. All my instincts tell me that he wouldn't do that, even if he wanted to mess with me some more. He's run off with a girl he thinks he loves (or at least, lusts after); he'd want to go somewhere to relax and enjoy it. And that isn't Canberra. I have to trust my gut - it does all sorts of unpleasant things if I don't. Besides, my head hasn't gotten me very far lately.

I wake up in the morning ready to get proactive with pep. I know where Jack is and, in the best spaghetti western tradition, I am going to track him down and bring him back. Well, since Hao Ling's parents are paying me, she's actually my priority for hauling back into town on the back of my horse. But I plan to kick a little Jack Brundle arse at the same time.

Hawks Nest: small coastal town across from Nelson Bay and favoured holiday destination of both our illustrious Prime Minister and my old mentor. Jack used to go there with his family for holidays and raves about how little the place has changed, how close it is to the Myall Lakes, how well it compares to the built-up, over commercialised Nelson Bay, how its sister town Tea Gardens has the best pie shop in the world, etc, etc ... All that reminiscing used to have me falling asleep, but this morning I bang at those memories, trying to shake anything loose that will help. They used to stay at some quaint little shack ... blah blah ... had a back yard where they played badminton ... blah blah ... The best I can remember is that it was only a couple of streets back from the main beach (which a quick map consult reveals is Bennetts Beach); there was a corner shop and a caravan park nearby. If I'm lucky - and as far as I'm concerned, now is the time to cash in on any that has been building up - he would be staying in that old place of his and making Hao Ling listen to the same mind-numbing, only-fit-for-a-lover's-consumption childhood memories.

This lone gunslinger thing is starting to work for me - I picture myself rolling into town with a six-shooter on my hip and a whole bunch of other cliches. I try whistling the 'duel at high-noon' tune but it comes out like an extinct birdcall. Whistling was never a skill I mastered.

I mount up Nelly-Bessie and we set off. We have 222 kilometres to go, according to my Gregory's, and not a moment to waste. The sooner I see an end to this sorry episode, the sooner my life returns to nice straightforward fraud and cheating cases whose protagonists I don't know and won't make me look like a fool. Or at least, if they do, nobody will know about it.

But before I leave Sydney there's a stop I need to make. There's no point wasting my time looking for Jack's CR-V if he has left it behind and picked up a rental. When I get to Summer Hill, all I have to do is cruise past his house and I see the car parked in the street. Probably left there for me, so that I know he is still in Sydney, laying low. Huh, you can fool me three times ... I don't stop but head directly towards the Pacific Highway and my prey.

During the drive I dredge up more that Jack has told me about good old Hawks Nest. Dolphins frolicking in the bay and under the Singing Bridge, the time that Jack came fifth in the World Prawn Eating Championship. At the same time every year, they hold the Myall Prawn Festival, in which people from Hawks Nest, Tea Gardens and anyone crazy enough to visit, eat prawns, dress up like prawns and generally act like prawns. Ahhh, provincialism in all its glory. But at least it's prawns and none of that historical crap. One thing I just can't stand is women dressed in white cloth caps and signs with too many double letters and 'e's. A visit to 'Ye Olde Gift Shoppe and Dry Cleaners' is enough to make me want to start hurling cannon balls.

Two and a half hours seem to fly by as the tunes of early Nick Cave provide sullen background to my thoughts of ye olde desecration and other things that drive me wild. I finally turn off the Pacific Highway and onto the 9 k stretch that, according to my map, will take me to Hawks Nest and Jack.

I pass by the Tea Gardens shops and notice a bakery called The Pieman: Jack's pie shop, I do believe. I mentally file that and keep going. The road veers left and then I am crossing the Singing Bridge - which I gather whistles when the wind is right - and I'm in Hawks Nest. I hate to say it, but on first glance it does seem like everything Jack described. On my left is some native bushland and yellow signs indicating the presence of koalas. On my right I can see someone fishing off a jetty. The road comes to a T-junction at the local golf course and the signs of life point to the right. I turn and pass by a real estate agent and a takeaway shop. I add the real estate to my mental notebook and keep driving. A little way along and a crossroads either leads to more shops or the beach. The beach is where I want to go right now, so I turn in that direction and keep my eyes peeled for signs of Jack and Hao Ling taking romantic walks with their respective canines. I briefly wonder if Sasha and Pookie get on half as well as their masters.

I pass a caravan park, little ice cream shop, and pub and then, across the road, I see Bennetts Beach. I park in a car park and look around. I'm taking a risk parking here; Jack would definitely recognise my car if he saw it, so I know I can't stay long. But the urge to get out, stretch my legs and smell the beach is one of those in-built, evolutionary drives and I could no more fight it than I could go back to walking on all fours.

I breathe in fresh, salty air. It is a warm April morning and Hawks Nest feels like one of the last few untouched pieces of coastal real estate in NSW. I soak it up for a minute and look around. On the beach I can see the requisite fishermen. To my left there is a surf rescue pavillion that looks deserted: wrong time of year. What I don't see is the couple I am looking for, so I reluctantly get back in my car and look at my map.

My plan is simple: in order to find Jack and Hao Ling, I need to use the knowledge and skills that I have. So, counting on one hand, my little finger asset is that I know Jack just as well as he knows me, and if he can use his knowledge to his advantage, then I can sure as hell do the same. It got me here, after all.

My ring finger asset is that when I am pissed off I have infinite patience and sitting around on surveillance is something I excel at. Most people get bored, but I can keep myself busy with philosophical contemplation and revenge fantasies until the cows come home. Or some other animal.

The first finger of my plan involves using my intimate knowledge of my target to drive to Tea Gardens and stake out The Pieman. It won't be long before Jack stops by. I'd be surprised if he isn't visiting at least once a day for a pie fix. Jack is what you might consider a fanatic. In fact, I have suggested in the past that he could write a coffee table book on the subject: Jack's Guide to Pies. I joke, but I know he likes the idea - and he has the knowledge to fill a book.

Pies are good PI food - they are portable, tasty, and they fill you up. Plus they are slightly better for you than donuts. At least, that's what Jack taught me in the early days, and it stuck. Not all of what he taught stuck, but some did. Mostly, what he passed on was experience - knowledge of the way things really work, instead of finding out the hard way. As for the rest, well I think this job does take a woman. Not to be sexist, but it is often intuition that gets the results in this job - and I just haven't noticed that particularly being a man's forte. In fairness though, most of the PIs I know are men and they do get the job done, so it's not like they aren't competent. It's just that I'm better.

On that self-congratulatory note, I drive back to Tea Gardens. Just before crossing the operatic bridge, I am brought to a halt by the sight of a koala lumbering down the footpath. It looks old and tough and isn't walking on the side of the nature reserve, but past houses on the other side of the street. It seems so out of context that I can only follow its progress with my eyes. After a minute of walking up the footpath I see it look left and right and then slowly cross the street and head back to the rest of its colony in the reserve. I'm struck that in just a week I have mingled with dogs, rats and now here I am watching a street-wise koala in its natural habitat.

On that note, I make like a tree. When I get to The Pieman, I find a parking spot on the other side of the road. From here I can see the entrance to shop, but I pull a small pair of detective-strength binoculars from my glove box just in case. I'm a little concerned that Jack will spot my car, but I don't think he'll be looking unless I'm right in front of him. And at this stage I don't plan to be. This is purely surveillance - the ring finger part of the plan. The denouement and middle finger will come later.

After just an hour - 1 pm, the pie-eater's witching hour - I'm well entrenched in my plan to change the world with recycled egg cartons and hemp when I see a man fitting the description step out of a light blue Holden Commodore. He has parked right next to The Pieman and I see the outline of a head waiting in the passenger seat. More than that, I see two little dog heads rising from the backseat and I know I have found my mark. I pick up the binoculars to be sure, and then give a little sky punch in celebration. I knew it!

A couple of minutes later he exits, arms laden with brown paper bags and I get a sudden craving for pie. I bet they do a great seafood one. He opens the driver's side door and passes the packages across his seat to his passenger and then slides in behind the wheel. I don't want to jinx myself, but can't help sending out a quick little prayer that they are on their way home and not off for a long drive to marvel at the local sights.

He leaves the car park and turns right towards Hawks Nest and I relax a little. So far so good. I start Nelly-Bessie and turn left to tail them. Across the bridge, I lose sight for a moment, but catch up with them stopped at the T-junction. Left is a scenic drive, right makes my life a helluva lot easier. He turns right - no indicator - and I breathe out the last bit of breath I have been holding. I've got him.

I stay back and until Jack turns into Russel Street, just two blocks back from the beach; it has to be his street. Ahhh, nostalgia, where would I be without you? I pull over on the side of the road and walk quickly and carefully up Russell. From behind a palm I see their car parked in front of a shack at the other end of the short street.

Now it's back to my old favourite, the waiting game. I try to remember where I was up to with the egg cartons while I keep an eye out for Jack. At some stage, he'll go out by himself, and when he does I'll move. Armed with a mobile phone programmed with Hao Ling's parents' phone number I'll state my case and then give them the chance to state theirs. And that, as they say, will be that.

The hours drag by as I sit in the car, but eventually, at five-thirty, I see Jack leave the shack and get into the car. Alone. I grin a malevolent grin that I have just spent half an hour practising and think what a shame it is that no one can see it. Oh well, I'll save it for Jack. I'm sure he'll be impressed.

He drives off and, without wasting a second, I grab my mobile and walk up the street and across the road. When I reach the door I compose myself quickly before knocking. I'm greeted by the sound of two dogs barking. I can hear them - tiny little dogs playing tough - and then they are shushed by a female voice. The door opens and I see the previously 2D face of photos come to life. I smile and am about to start my fast-talking when Sasha darts out from behind Hao Ling's legs towards me. She's happy to see me! I give her a quick pat and then push her down off my leg. Pookie has stayed back behind Hao Ling, and when I look up at her I see that Sasha has done the job of introductions for me.

"I know. I thought it would be better if I talked to you, woman to woman," I say as I walk. It is a typical beach shack: a bedroom on either side of the short entry hall, small kitchen, lounge room with table, unmatched lounges and vintage TV. The requisite 3D pictures of beach chairs, boat shacks and shells adorn the walls. It may be Jack's idea of nostalgic paradise, but I don't think I could hang around here indefinitely and neither will Hao Ling.

"I mean, even if you and Jack really like each other," I can hear the cynicism in my voice and stop. I don't want to lose my edge here. I continue more carefully. "I just mean that you don't need to do this to be happy together. Jack doesn't earn a lot of money but he gets by, and when you finish uni I'm sure you will get a great job. Here or in Singapore." I pause. "Your parents are worried about you, Hao Ling. They thought you were kidnapped. You need to talk to them, sort it out with them and then you can work it out with Jack. You know I'm right."

While she makes the call I go over to the fridge and grab myself a beer. VB: they must be living rough. I take it to a lounge chair and sit back, putting my feet up on a glass-topped coffee table through which I can see out-of-date magazines and a game of Connect 4, no doubt with half the pieces missing. I settle in to wait. There is no way my smile practice is going to waste.

She is still on the phone five minutes later and I'm starting to calculate how much extra this will add to my expenses when I hear the front door open and the dogs run towards it. Jack bounces in, talking to the dogs before yelling, "Honey, I'm home!". He sounds positively buoyant for that couple of moments before he realises something's up. And I feel bad for him, I really do. When he sees me and his features sink I sympathise with my old mentor. But then I think again.

Rani Milne has written in various forms throughout her career. She has worked as a copywriter for Doubleday Australia , as a business journalist for Australian Associated Press and as a freelance writer and editor, writing articles, newsletters and website copy for clients.

Rani has always had a passion for writing fiction and has recently indulged this passion: completing a Master of Creative Writing at the University of Canberra and writing furiously in her spare time. She had a short story published by Vibewire.net.au, which she hopes is the beginning of a beautiful career.