Chapter 26
Dear Detective Hicks
I notice you have failed to acknowledge my previous letter.
Obviously, I did not expect you to reply directly.
I was far too careful to allow you to trace my message, as I’m sure you will have discovered.
You will find similar efforts have been taken with this one, although no doubt you will be compelled to check.
That is one of the reasons I will stay ahead of you.
You have too much to do, while I have only one thing.
So far, my code is unravelling exactly to plan.
But you told the press you have received no correspondence from me.
If you are ‘holding back details’, I quite understand.
However, it may be that you are unsure whether I am the man you are looking for.
If that is the case, I am enclosing proof that should satisfy even you.
I would hate to think you weren’t taking me seriously. I want to beat you fair and square.
So let me help you, as much as you deserve.
The people who have died mean nothing to me.
By now you know that they are strangers to me, that they have done me no personal wrong, that they have no obvious connection to me.
But I am telling you something else. Their deaths mean nothing.
The murders are irrelevant to me. What I am interested in is the pattern below the surface. Can you break it? That’s what matters.
Why murders then? Because the stakes are very high, in ways you cannot possibly understand.
And I want the finest minds concentrated on cracking my code.
Challenging the police, on their own ground, is the ideal solution.
After all, you are soldiers of a kind. You have enormous resources.
If anyone can do it, it will be you. If not, I win, don’t I?
I beat you. You don’t seem to be doing very well so far.
But please keep trying. A hollow victory is no victory at all.
In the meantime, as mentioned above, I enclose proof that I am the man you are looking for. It should be incontrovertible. It will also reveal something that will surely be of interest to you, something it is only fair you know.
You haven’t found most of them yet.