Not long after, Christopher’s father discovers his book, screams at Christopher, grabs him and throws his book away. Mrs Alexander reveals that Mr Shears and Christopher’s mother were having an affair, before Christopher’s mother died two years before. Christopher asks her about Mrs Shears and asks, since Mr Shears left his wife, if she thought he had something to do with the murder. Not understanding the logic behind his father’s aggression or his insistence that he stop, Christopher continues his search and talks to one of his neighbors, Mrs Alexander. His father is furious when he finds out what Christopher is doing, and forbids him from continuing his ‘detecting’. Taking his inspiration from the Sherlock Holmes stories, Christopher knocks on the doors of various neighbors to try to find out what happened to Wellington. Inspired by this, he decides to write a detective story, the very one we are reading: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. As a school assignment, Christopher’s class is told to write a story. The strange death of Wellington prompts Christopher to search for his killer.

The police arrive and Christopher is taken to the station and, shortly after, his father arrives to testify for Christopher and take him home. She thinks Christopher has killed the dog. He goes over to hug the dog and soon the neighbor, Mrs Shears, emerges from her house, screaming.

Christopher Boon, a mathematically gifted boy of fifteen with Asperger's syndrome, sees a dog lying on the grass in front of his neighbor’s house with a fork sticking out of it.

The mystery of the dog in the nighttime