Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

And I asked, “Why?”

And she said, “Because obviously he is going to find it quite upsetting.”

And I said, “Why is he going to find it upsetting?”

Then she sucked in another big breath and said, “Because… because I think you know why your father doesn’t like Mr. Shears very much.”

Then I asked, “Did Mr. Shears kill Mother?”

And Mrs. Alexander said, “Kill her?”

And I said, “Yes. Did he kill Mother?”

And Mrs. Alexander said, “No. No. Of course he didn’t kill your mother.”

And I said, “But did he give her stress so that she died of a heart attack?”

And Mrs. Alexander said, “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about, Christopher.”

And I said, “Or did he hurt her so that she had to go into hospital?”

And Mrs. Alexander said, “Did she have to go into hospital?”

And I said, “Yes. And it wasn’t very serious at first, but she had a heart attack when she was in hospital.”

And Mrs. Alexander said, “Oh my goodness.”

I said, “And she died.”

And Mrs. Alexander said “Oh my goodness” again, and then she said, “Oh, Christopher, I am so, so sorry. I never realized.”

Then I asked her, “Why did you say ‘I think you know why your father doesn’t like Mr. Shears very much’?”

Mrs. Alexander put her hand over her mouth and said, “Oh dear, dear, dear.” But she didn’t answer my question.

So I asked her the same question again, because in a murder mystery novel when someone doesn’t want to answer a question it is because they are trying to keep a secret or trying to stop someone from getting into trouble, which means that the answers to those questions are the most important answers of all, and that is why the detective has to put that person under pressure.

But Mrs. Alexander still didn’t answer. Instead she asked me a question. She said, “So you don’t know?”

And I said, “Don’t know what?”

She replied, “Christopher, look, I probably shouldn’t be telling you this.” Then she said, “Perhaps we should take a little walk in the park together. This is not the place to be talking about this kind of thing.”

I was nervous. I did not know Mrs. Alexander. I knew that she was an old lady and that she liked dogs. But she was a stranger. And I never go into the park on my own because it is dangerous and people inject drugs behind the public toilets in the corner. I wanted to go home and go up to my room and feed Toby and practice some maths.

But I was excited, too. Because I thought she might tell me a secret. And the secret might be about who killed Wellington. Or about Mr. Shears. And if she did that I might have more evidence against him, or be able to Exclude Him from My Investigations.

So because it was a Super Good DayI decided to walk into the park with Mrs. Alexander, even though it scared me.

When we were inside the park Mrs. Alexander stopped walking and said, “I am going to say something to you and you must promise not to tell your father that I told you this.”

I asked, “Why?”

And she said, “I shouldn’t have said what I said. And if I don’t explain, you’ll carry on wondering what I meant. And you might ask your father. And I don’t want you to do that because I don’t want you to upset him. So I’m going to explain why I said what I said. But before I do that you have to promise not to tell anyone I said this to you.”

I asked, “Why?”

And she said, “Christopher, please, just trust me.”

And I said, “I promise.” Because if Mrs. Alexander told me who killed Wellington, or she told me that Mr. Shears had really killed Mother, I could still go to the police and tell them because you are allowed to break a promise if someone has committed a crime and you know about it.

And Mrs. Alexander said, “Your mother, before she died, was very good friends with Mr. Shears.”

And I said, “I know.”

And she said, “No, Christopher. I’m not sure that you do. I mean that they were very good friends. Very, very good friends.”

I thought about this for a while and said, “Do you mean that they were doing sex?”

And Mrs. Alexander said, “Yes, Christopher. That is what I mean.”

Then she didn’t say anything for about 30 seconds. Then she said, “I’m sorry, Christopher. I really didn’t mean to say anything that was going to upset you. But I wanted to explain. Why I said what I said. You see, I thought you knew. That’s why your father thinks that Mr. Shears is an evil man. And that will be why he doesn’t want you going around talking to people about Mr. Shears. Because that will bring back bad memories.”

And I said, “Was that why Mr. Shears left Mrs. Shears, because he was doing sex with someone else when he was married to Mrs. Shears?”

And Mrs. Alexander said, “Yes, I expect so.”

Then she said, “I’m sorry, Christopher. I really am.”

And I said, “I think I should go now.”

And she said, “Are you OK, Christopher?”

And I said, “I’m scared of being in the park with you because you’re a stranger.”

And she said, “I’m not a stranger, Christopher, I’m a friend.”

And I said, “I’m going to go home now.”

And she said, “If you want to talk about this you can come and see me anytime you want. You only have to knock on my door.”

And I said, “OK.”

And she said, “Christopher?”

And I said, “What?”

And she said, “You won’t tell your father about this conversation, will you?”

And I said, “No. I promised.”

And she said, “You go on home. And remember what I said. Anytime.”

Then I went home.

101.Mr. Jeavons said that I liked maths because it was safe. He said I liked maths because it meant solving problems, and these problems were difficult and interesting but there was always a straightforward answer at the end. And what he meant was that maths wasn’t like life because in life there are no straightforward answers at the end. I know he meant this because this is what he said.

This is because Mr. Jeavons doesn’t understand numbers.

Here is a famous story called The Monty Hall Problemwhich I have included in this book because it illustrates what I mean.

There used to be a column called Ask Marilyn in a magazine called Parade in America. And this column was written by Marilyn vos Savant and in the magazine it said that she had the highest IQ in the world in the Guinness Book of World Records Hall of Fame. And in the column she answered maths questions sent in by readers. And in September 1990 this question was sent in by Craig F. Whitaker of Columbia, Maryland (but it is not what is called a direct quote because I have made it simpler and easier to understand):

You are on a game show on television. On this game show the idea is to win a car as a prize. The game show host shows you three doors. He says that there is a car behind one of the doors and there are goats behind the other two doors. He asks you to pick a door. You pick a door but the door is not opened. Then the game show host opens one of the doors you didn’t pick to show a goat (because he knows what is behind the doors). Then he says that you have one final chance to change your mind before the doors are opened and you get a car or a goat. So he asks you if you want to change your mind and pick the other unopened door instead. What should you do?

Marilyn vos Savant said that you should always change and pick the final door because the chances are 2 in 3 that there will be a car behind that door.

But if you use your intuition you think that chance is 50-50 because you think there is an equal chance that the car is behind any door.