He finds a dog with a large garden fork inside its stomach. He knows the dog, his name is Wellington, and this is when he decides to find out who murdered the dog. ‘I stroked Wellington and wondered who had killed him, and why.’ Wellington is Mrs Shear’s dog and she is infuriated when at the beginning of the book sees Christopher in her garden with Wellington. The dog’s stomach was leaking blood like a waterfall; unluckily everything seems to point at Christopher for the murder. Christopher shows
Mark Haddon makes Christopher an interesting person by the way all of his relationships are good but then bad. When with his Father he loved him, ‘And Father said, "Christopher, do you understand that I love you?" However, sometimes there were worst enemies like his Father and Mother ‘Sometimes Father would say, "Christopher, if you do not behave I swear I shall knock the living daylights out of you," or Mother would say, "Jesus, Christopher, I am seriously considering putting you into a home," or Mother would say, "You are going to drive me into an early grave." Love is quite complicated. If Christopher has heard these things from the two people in the world who love him most, it has to be difficult to get a handle on just what it means to love someone.
Mark uses a character called Siobhan to be Christopher’s best friend; he met her 8 years ago. Siobhan is one his teachers and always advices Christopher and tells him to write the book. She helps him figure out what to do next...
His relationship with Mrs Alexander helped a lot in his investigation as he now knows why his Father hates Mr Shears so much; he had an affair with Christopher’s Mother. Now he has a prime suspect and tries to look into Mr Shear’s life although he lives in London with Mother. This ends up in Father telling him to stop writing the book and takes it of him. As Christopher rummages through Father’s things and finds many letters written from his Mother. Father comes in and delivers shocking and disturbing news, ‘I killed Wellington, Christopher.’
In my opinion, the relationships make the investigation in the book much more interesting, the different characters make the investigation more exciting and we can relate to the story.