I said, “I do.”

He was quiet for a few seconds, then he asked, “Did you kill the dog, Christopher?”

I said, “I didn’t kill the dog.”

He said, “Do you know that it is wrong to lie to a policeman and that you can get into a very great deal of trouble if you do?”

I said, “Yes.”

He said, “So, do you know who killed the dog?”

I said, “No.”

He said, “Are you telling the truth?”

I said, “Yes. I always tell the truth.”

And he said, “Right. I am going to give you a caution.”

I asked, “Is that going to be on a piece of paper like a certificate I can keep?”

He replied, “No, a caution means that we are going to keep a record of what you did, that you hit a policeman but that it was an accident and that you didn’t mean to hurt the policeman.”

I said, “But it wasn’t an accident.”

And Father said, “Christopher, please.”

The policeman closed his mouth and breathed out loudly through his nose and said, “If you get into any more trouble we will take out this record and see that you have been given a caution and we will take things much more seriously. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I said that I understood.

Then he said that we could go and he stood up and opened the door and we walked out into the corridor and back to the front desk, where I picked up my Swiss Army knife and my piece of string and the piece of the wooden puzzle and the 5 pellets of rat food for Toby and my ?1.47 and the paper clip and my front door key, which were all in a little plastic bag, and we went out to Father’s car, which was parked outside, and we drove home.

37. I do not tell lies. Mother used to say that this was because I was a good person. But it is not because I am a good person. It is because I can’t tell lies.

Mother was a small person who smelled nice. And she sometimes wore a fleece with a zip down the front which was pink and it had a tiny label which said Berghaus on the left bosom.