Detective-Inspector Laker looked again at the letter. It was typewritten and had arrived through the post that morning, addressed simply (and incorrectly) to ‘Murder Department’.
A crank letter would normally have been dealt with further down the hierarchy. It was only because of the very specific nature of the accusation that it had teen referred to him.
The message was short.
THERE ARE CONSTANT COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE NUMBER OF UNSOLVED MURDERS, AND THAT DOESN’T DO MUCH FOR THE POLICE IMAGE. IF YOU WANT TO IMPROVE THE STATISTICS, YOU COULD DO WORSE THAN ASK GRAHAM MARSHALL OF 173, BOILEAU AVENUE ABOUT THE DEATH OF HIS WIFE, MERRILY.
Needless to say, there was no signature.
Detective-Inspector Laker looked at the paper hard. He didn’t handle it. In the unlikely event of investigation being required, the less new prints the better.
From the criminal point of view, he didn’t take it very seriously. The shock of death, he knew, produced bizarre reactions in people; its random nature, its lack of apparent purpose, had power to change characters overnight. The sheer disbelief of bereavement, the desperate desire to explain the inexplicable, could lead to wild accusations, usually against doctors and hospitals, but often against individuals too.
No, it was not the nature of the letter that disturbed him; it was just one phrase in it. ‘The death of his wife.’
It was eight months since Helen had died. He thought he was getting better; at times he could even think ahead, make plans beyond the imperatives of work; he would never get over it, but at times he could envisage living in a kind of equilibrium with the knowledge of her absence.
And then something like this would happen. He never knew what it would be that triggered the return of his raw, uncontainable grief. It could be the sight of a woman in the street, a sentence half-heard in a television play, a smell of cooking, or something as fatuously irrelevant as those five typewritten words. And when it came, the pain still had power to destroy him, sap his strength and poison his thoughts, leaving him empty, exhausted and afraid.
Yes, obviously the letter needed some sort of token investigation. But it could wait a few days.