anticipation, waiting for the moment the slip collar comes off. Then there’s a fraction of a second where it seems to explode, launching itself forward at its prey. And a terrible snarling and growling and shaking and squeaking as it gets to grips, quite literally, with the rat. It’s not nice, but it is impressive. And quick.
It is not a sense of responsibility or a desire to please that makes a dog do this. It’s what they’re bred to do. They can’t help it. If I were a dog, I’d be part terrier.
The rational part of me makes a flow chart with two columns, headed MATTHEW IS DEAD and MATTHEW IS ALIVE .
If Matthew is dead, there are four possibilities:
(A) Murder
(B) Suicide
(C) Accidental death
(D) Illness—stroke or heart attack?
At Suzanne’s, I Googled cases of people who suddenly walk away from their homes and families. Some of the reasons are:
(A) Madness
(B) Amnesia
(C) Money problems
(D) Marital woes
(E) Secret second family
(F) Depression
(G) Fired from job but hasn’t told wife
(H) Crisis of religious faith or near-death experience
(I) Terrible secret
(J) Kidnapping
(K) Mental illness
(L) Doesn’t know why
Many of these reasons are confusing. Why wouldn’t you tell your wife if you lost your job? What’s so bad about a crisis of faith? What sort of secret? Someday I’ll understand more of these things. At the moment I just have to think them through. Not everything you want to know is explained properly on Google.
To be thorough, I have to take into account the possibility that Matthew was kidnapped. But why would someone kidnap a middle-aged professor of British history? I have no idea. For all I know he has links to the Chinese underworld, about which I know less than nothing, except what I once saw in a TV movie.
Despite the fact that I can sweep a crime scene for rats like a terrier, I frequently have trouble putting clues together due to gaps in my knowledge of the world. I could do with a middle-aged accomplice. Gil is not the person for this job. Miss Marple would be better.
Take marriage. Marieka and Gil have been together for twenty years but have never married. Marieka says it’s because where she grew up, women were independent and didn’t want to have some man put a ring on their finger and tell them to do the washing-up.
This makes me laugh. I can’t imagine either of my parents acting like that. When I asked Gil why he and Marieka never married, he said, I wouldn’t dream of presuming.
Presuming what? I asked.
I don’t remember if he answered.
Matthew had lots of girlfriends but didn’t get married till he met Suzanne. He was forty-two. This tells me something too, but I’m not sure what. Whenever I imagine him, it’s on a mountain with a frozen beard. Not the sort of person you imagine getting married.
Most of my friends at school have parents who look like married people are supposed to look—women in dresses, men in ties. Catlin’s mum trained as a teacher but stays home each day while Catlin’s dad goes to work for a software company. Every time I see her, I think she looks out of place in her house as if she doesn’t know where to sit.
Gil glances away from the road for the briefest of seconds and asks what I’m doing and I tell him I’m thinking as hard as I can, in circles and retrogrades and whatever else I can drum up. I ask him the same question and he says he’s driving Matthew’s wife’s car up toward Canada.
I know that, I answer. But what else?
I’m thinking too, he says. I’m thinking about my fool of a friend.
What have you concluded? I ask, ignoring the comment about the fool.
Nothing, Gil says. What about you?
I’m trying to be methodical, I say—slightly pointedly, because he never is. I’m trying to organize the possibilities. Once we’ve done that, it will make our job a little easier.
Oh, you think so?
Yes, I do. I look over at him. He’s facing forward because he’s driving, but he swivels an eye on
It is not a sense of responsibility or a desire to please that makes a dog do this. It’s what they’re bred to do. They can’t help it. If I were a dog, I’d be part terrier.
The rational part of me makes a flow chart with two columns, headed MATTHEW IS DEAD and MATTHEW IS ALIVE .
If Matthew is dead, there are four possibilities:
(A) Murder
(B) Suicide
(C) Accidental death
(D) Illness—stroke or heart attack?
At Suzanne’s, I Googled cases of people who suddenly walk away from their homes and families. Some of the reasons are:
(A) Madness
(B) Amnesia
(C) Money problems
(D) Marital woes
(E) Secret second family
(F) Depression
(G) Fired from job but hasn’t told wife
(H) Crisis of religious faith or near-death experience
(I) Terrible secret
(J) Kidnapping
(K) Mental illness
(L) Doesn’t know why
Many of these reasons are confusing. Why wouldn’t you tell your wife if you lost your job? What’s so bad about a crisis of faith? What sort of secret? Someday I’ll understand more of these things. At the moment I just have to think them through. Not everything you want to know is explained properly on Google.
To be thorough, I have to take into account the possibility that Matthew was kidnapped. But why would someone kidnap a middle-aged professor of British history? I have no idea. For all I know he has links to the Chinese underworld, about which I know less than nothing, except what I once saw in a TV movie.
Despite the fact that I can sweep a crime scene for rats like a terrier, I frequently have trouble putting clues together due to gaps in my knowledge of the world. I could do with a middle-aged accomplice. Gil is not the person for this job. Miss Marple would be better.
Take marriage. Marieka and Gil have been together for twenty years but have never married. Marieka says it’s because where she grew up, women were independent and didn’t want to have some man put a ring on their finger and tell them to do the washing-up.
This makes me laugh. I can’t imagine either of my parents acting like that. When I asked Gil why he and Marieka never married, he said, I wouldn’t dream of presuming.
Presuming what? I asked.
I don’t remember if he answered.
Matthew had lots of girlfriends but didn’t get married till he met Suzanne. He was forty-two. This tells me something too, but I’m not sure what. Whenever I imagine him, it’s on a mountain with a frozen beard. Not the sort of person you imagine getting married.
Most of my friends at school have parents who look like married people are supposed to look—women in dresses, men in ties. Catlin’s mum trained as a teacher but stays home each day while Catlin’s dad goes to work for a software company. Every time I see her, I think she looks out of place in her house as if she doesn’t know where to sit.
Gil glances away from the road for the briefest of seconds and asks what I’m doing and I tell him I’m thinking as hard as I can, in circles and retrogrades and whatever else I can drum up. I ask him the same question and he says he’s driving Matthew’s wife’s car up toward Canada.
I know that, I answer. But what else?
I’m thinking too, he says. I’m thinking about my fool of a friend.
What have you concluded? I ask, ignoring the comment about the fool.
Nothing, Gil says. What about you?
I’m trying to be methodical, I say—slightly pointedly, because he never is. I’m trying to organize the possibilities. Once we’ve done that, it will make our job a little easier.
Oh, you think so?
Yes, I do. I look over at him. He’s facing forward because he’s driving, but he swivels an eye on
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