67. The next day was Saturday and there is not much to do on a Saturday unless Father takes me out somewhere on an outing to the boating lake or to the garden center, but on this Saturday, England were playing Romania at football, which meant that we weren’t going to go on an outing because Father wanted to watch the match on the television. So I decided to do some more detection on my own.
I decided that I would go and ask some of the other people who lived in our street if they had seen anyone killing Wellington or whether they had seen anything strange happening in the street on Thursday night.
Talking to strangers is not something I usually do. I don’t like talking to strangers. This is not because of Stranger Danger, which they tell us about at school, which is where a strange man offers you sweets or a ride in his car because he wants to do sex with you. I am not worried about that. If a strange man touched me I would hit him, and I can hit people very hard. For example, when I punched Sarah because she had pulled my hair, I knocked her unconscious and she had concussion and they had to take her to the Accident and Emergency Department at the hospital.
And also I always have my Swiss Army knife in my pocket and it has a saw blade which could cut a man’s fingers off.
I don’t like strangers because I don’t like people I have never met before. They are hard to understand. It is like being in France, which is where we went on holiday sometimes when Mother was alive, to camp. And I hated it because if you went into a shop or a restaurant or on a beach you couldn’t understand what anyone was saying, which was frightening.
It takes me a long time to get used to people I don’t know. For example, when there is a new member of staff at school I don’t talk to them for weeks and weeks. I just watch them until I know that they are safe. Then I ask them questions about themselves, like whether they have pets and what is their favorite color and what do they know about the Apollo space missions and I get them to draw a plan of their house and I ask them what kind of car they drive, so I get to know them.
Then I don’t mind if I am in the same room as them and don’t have to watch them all the time.
So talking to the other people in our street was brave. But if you are going to do detective work you have to be brave, so I had no choice.
First of all I made a plan of our part of the street, which is called Randolph Street. Then I made sure I had my Swiss Army knife in my pocket and I went out and I knocked on the door of number 40, which is opposite Mrs. Shears’s house, which means that they were most likely to have seen something. The people who live at number 40 are called Thompson.
Mr. Thompson answered the door. He was wearing a T-shirt which said BEER - Helping Ugly People Have Sex for 2,000 Years
Mr. Thompson said, “Can I help you?”
I said, “Do you know who killed Wellington?”
I didn’t look at his face. I don’t like looking at people’s faces, especially if they are strangers. He didn’t say anything for a few seconds.
Then he said, “Who are you?”
I said, “I’m Christopher Boone from number 36 and I know you. You’re Mr. Thompson.”
He said, “I’m Mr. Thompson’s brother.”
I said, “Do you know who killed Wellington?”
He said, “Who the fuck is Wellington?”
I said, “Mrs. Shears’s dog. Mrs. Shears is from number 41.”
He said, “Someone killed her dog?”
I said, “With a fork.”
He said, “Jesus Christ.”
I said, “A garden fork,” in case he thought I meant a fork you eat your food with. Then I said,
“Do you know who killed him?”
He said, “I haven’t a bloody clue.”
I said, “Did you see anything suspicious on Thursday evening?”
He said, “Look, son, do you really think you should be going around asking questions like this?”
And I said, “Yes, because I want to find out who killed Wellington, and I am writing a book about it.”
And he said, “Well, I was in Colchester on Thursday, so you’re asking the wrong bloke.”
I said, “Thank you,” and I walked away.
There was no answer at house number 42.
I had seen the people who lived at number 44, but I didn’t know what their names were.
They were black people and they were a man and a lady with two children, a boy and a girl. The lady answered the door. She was wearing boots which looked like army boots and there were 5 bracelets made out of a silver-colored metal on her wrist and they made a jangling noise. She said,
“It’s Christopher, isn’t it?”
I said that it was, and I asked her if she knew who killed Wellington. She knew who Wellington was so I didn’t have to explain, and she had heard about him being killed.
I asked if she had seen anything suspicious on Thursday evening which might be a clue.
She said, “Like what?”
And I said, “Like strangers. Or like the sound of people arguing.”
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 don’t like people laughing at me, so I turned and walked away.
I didn’t 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 Balancetrainers. And the laces were red.
I went up to Mrs. Alexander and said, “Do you know anything about Wellington being killed?”
Then she turned off the electric hedge trimmer 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.
And sometimes Mrs. Shears stayed overnight at our house and I liked it when she did because she made things tidy and she arranged the jars and pans and tins in order of their height on the shelves in the kitchen and she always made their labels face outward and she put the knives and forks and spoons in the correct compartments in the cutlery drawer. But she smoked cigarettes and she said lots of things I didn’t understand, e.g., “I’m going to hit the hay,” and “It’s brass monkeys out there,” and “Let’s rustle up some tucker.” And I didn’t like when she said things like that because I didn’t know what she meant.
And I don’t know why Mr. Shears left Mrs. Shears because nobody told me. But when you get married it is because you want to live together and have children, and if you get married in a church you have to promise that you will stay together until death do us part. And if you don’t want to live together you have to get divorced and this is because one of you has done sex with somebody else or because you are having arguments and you hate each other and you don’t want to live in the same house anymore and have children. And Mr. Shears didn’t want to live in the same house as Mrs. Shears anymore, so he probably hated her and he might have come back and killed her dog to make her sad.
I decided to try and find out more about Mr. Shears.
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