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

But she said she hadn’t.

And then I decided to do what is called Trying a Different Tack, and I asked her whether she knew of anyone who might want to make Mrs. Shears sad.

And she said, “Perhaps you should be talking to your father about this.”

And I explained that I couldn’t ask my father because the investigation was a secret because he had told me to stay out of other people’s business.

She said, “Well, maybe he has a point, Christopher.”

And I said, “So, you don’t know anything which might be a clue.”

And she said, “No,” and then she said, “You be careful, young man.”

I said that I would be careful and then I said thank you to her for helping me with my questions and I went to number 43, which is the house next to Mrs. Shears’s house.

The people who live at number 43 are Mr. Wise and Mr. Wise’s mother, who is in a wheelchair, which is why he lives with her, so he can take her to the shops and drive her around.

It was Mr. Wise who answered the door. He smelled of body odor and old biscuits and off popcorn, which is what you smell of if you haven’t washed for a very long time, like Jason at school smells because his family is poor.

I asked Mr. Wise if he knew who had killed Wellington on Thursday night.

He said, “Bloody hell, policemen really are getting younger, aren’t they.”

Then he laughed. I do not like people laughing at me, so I turned and walked away.

I did not knock at the door of number 38, which is the house next to our house, because the people there take drugs and Father says that I should never talk to them, so I don’t. And they play loud music at night and they make me scared sometimes when I see them in the street. And it is not really their house.

Then I noticed that the old lady who lives at number 39, which is on the other side of Mrs. Shears’s house, was in her front garden cutting her hedge with an electric hedge trimmer.

Her name is Mrs. Alexander. She has a dog. It is a dachshund, so she was probably a good person because she liked dogs. But the dog wasn’t in the garden with her. It was inside the house.

Mrs. Alexander was wearing jeans and training shoes, which old people don’t normally wear. And there was mud on the jeans. And the trainers were New Balance trainers. And the laces were red.

I went up to Mrs. Alexander and said, “Do you know anything about Wellington being killed?”

Then she turned the electric hedge trimmer off and said, “I’m afraid you’re going to have to say that again. I’m a little deaf.”

So I said, “Do you know anything about Wellington being killed?”

And she said, “I heard about it yesterday. Dreadful. Dreadful.”

I said, “Do you know who killed him?”

And she said, “No, I don’t.”

I replied, “Somebody must know because the person who killed Wellington knows that they killed Wellington. Unless they were a mad person and didn’t know what they were doing. Or unless they had amnesia.”

And she said, “Well, I suppose you’re probably right.”

I said, “Thank you for helping me with my investigation.”

And she said, “You’re Christopher, aren’t you?”

I said, “Yes. I live at number 36.”

And she said, “We haven’t talked before, have we?”

I said, “No. I don’t like talking to strangers. But I’m doing detective work.”

And she said, “I see you every day, going to school.”

I didn’t reply to this.

And she said, “It’s very nice of you to come and say hello.”

I didn’t reply to this either because Mrs. Alexander was doing what is called chatting, where people say things to each other which aren’t questions and answers and aren’t connected.

Then she said, “Even if it’s only because you’re doing detective work.”

And I said, “Thank you” again.

And I was about to turn and walk away when she said, “I have a grandson your age.”

I tried to do chatting by saying, “My age is 15 years and 3 months and 3 days.”

And she said, “Well, almost your age.”

Then we said nothing for a little while until she said, “You don’t have a dog, do you?”

And I said, “No.”

She said, “You’d probably like a dog, wouldn’t you.”

And I said, “I have a rat.”

And she said, “A rat?”

And I said, “He’s called Toby.”

And she said, “Oh.”

And I said, “Most people don’t like rats because they think they carry diseases like bubonic plague. But that’s only because they lived in sewers and stowed away on ships coming from foreign countries where there were strange diseases. But rats are very clean. Toby is always washing himself. And you don’t have to take him out for walks. I just let him run around my room so that he gets some exercise. And sometimes he sits on my shoulder or hides in my sleeve like it’s a burrow. But rats don’t live in burrows in nature.”

Mrs. Alexander said, “Do you want to come in for tea?”

And I said, “I don’t go into other people’s houses.”

And she said, “Well, maybe I could bring some out here. Do you like lemon squash?”

I replied, “I only like orange squash.”

And she said, “Luckily I have some of that as well. And what about Battenberg?”

And I said, “I don’t know because I don’t know what Battenberg is.”

She said, “It’s a kind of cake. It has four pink and yellow squares in the middle and it has marzipan icing round the edge.”

And I said, “Is it a long cake with a square cross section which is divided into equally sized, alternately colored squares?”

And she said, “Yes, I think you could probably describe it like that.”

I said, “I think I’d like the pink squares but not the yellow squares because I don’t like yellow. And I don’t know what marzipan is, so I don’t know whether I’d like that.”

And she said, “I’m afraid marzipan is yellow, too. Perhaps I should bring out some biscuits instead. Do you like biscuits?”

And I said, “Yes. Some sorts of biscuits.”

And she said, “I’ll get a selection.”

Then she turned and went into the house. She moved very slowly because she was an old lady and she was inside the house for more than 6 minutes and I began to get nervous because I didn’t know what she was doing in the house. I didn’t know her well enough to know whether she was telling the truth about getting orange squash and Battenberg cake. And I thought she might be ringing the police and then I’d get into much more serious trouble because of the caution.

So I walked away.

And as I was crossing the street I had a stroke of inspiration about who might have killed Wellington. I was imagining a Chain of Reasoning inside my head which was like this:

1. Why would you kill a dog?

a) Because you hated the dog.

b) Because you were mad.

c) Because you wanted to make Mrs. Shears upset.

2. I didn’t know anyone who hated Wellington, so if it was (a) it was probably a stranger.

3. I didn’t know any mad people, so if it was (b) it was also probably a stranger.

4. Most murders are committed by someone who is known to the victim. In fact, you are most likely to be murdered by a member of your own family on Christmas Day. This is a fact. Wellington was therefore most likely to have been killed by someone known to him.

5. If it was (c) I only knew one person who didn’t like Mrs. Shears, and that was Mr. Shears, who knew Wellington very well indeed.

This meant that Mr. Shears was my Prime Suspect.

Mr. Shears used to be married to Mrs. Shears and they lived together until two years ago. Then Mr. Shears left and didn’t come back. This was why Mrs. Shears came over and did lots of cooking for us after Mother died, because she didn’t have to cook for Mr. Shears anymore and she didn’t have to stay at home and be his wife. And also Father said that she needed company and didn’t want to be on her own.