On Anonymity

Throughout my investigative career, I've been subjected to various malign fixations. Most recently, Krome666, a barely literate Marilyn Manson fan from Worcester, taking exception to my opinion of his idol, has littered my in-box with personal observations by which, I assume, he intends to demoralise me. Having spent the past months with limited internet access, I'd amost forgotten about the attentions my self-styled "nemesis". On returning to Drumfeld, I found in my in-box twenty nine messages escalating toward a frenzy of semi-coherent renunciation. Krome might be interested to read that in 1984 my nomination as a Child of Courage and Achievement prompted members of notorious 'Brockville Sect' to recite passages from Psalm 109 while pelting my window with polished, black pebbles. I was fifteen years old! If I stared them down without flinching, am I likely to be dismayed at being dismissed as a "fat granny face" and a "spaz"?

Anonymity is the cloak of cowardice. Those who scurry fearfully through real life, pick 'fights' in cyber-space with impunity. Anyone trying to goad me into losing my temper will be disappointed. Only a fool provides a secret tormentor with the satisfaction of a response. It's more sensible by far to pity someone who obsessively dedicates him or herself to unprovoked malevolence. The internet, of course, makes such demeaning behaviour horribly straightforward. A normally decent individual might easily succumb to a moment's irritation and furtively make himself hateful. As recently as ten years ago, however, the dark art of the poison-pen writer required levels of preparation and cunning that deterred all but the mentally deranged.

To the best of my knowledge, Alexander Coull was the most prolific author of anonymous letters in modern times. An otherwise respectable and benign individual, his solitary transgression, nonetheless impacted upon numerous lives, not least mine .

Apparently timid and inoffensive, the teenaged Coull became prone to palpitation inducing fits of rage. For months he struggled to find an outlet for his moods that didn't result in personal endangerment. More robust youngsters might have turned to sport, but Coull had a horror of physical contact with other people. Unable to channel his aggressive tendencies, he was bedevilled by stomach complaints and disrupted sleep patterns, both common symptoms of repression. He eventually stumbled upon the outlet that would define his future when, having nurtured an inexplicably intense loathing toward Richard Hearne, creator of Mr Pastry, he wrote a thirty item list of why he found the character and its creator offensive. On sending this, Coull found himself at peace with the world, a brief respite ended when he was visited by police officers responding to a complaint from Mr Hearne.

Discouraged from further correspondence, Coull tried to channel his energies into charity work becoming a stalwart of various church initiatives. The experienced investigator recognises this symptom of transgression: my case files contain numerous instances of desperate efforts to placate inner demons with good deeds. In Coull's case, the distraction was initially successful. In 1970, however, a chance meeting with George Harrison at a sorting office for items to be shipped to Bangladesh, enraged Coull in a way that could only be expressed in a ten page letter of breathtaking vituperation. On this occasion, he didn't sign it.

While we'll never know the full extent of Coull's correspondence, it's been categorically established that over the course of thirty years, he sent over ten thousand such letters to recipients ranging from Lulu and child singer 'Wee' Stewart Anderson to David Blunkett and 'Bono'. The Hamilton Coe archive contains five letters I received from Coull. The last of these, a neatly written diatribe in which I'm described as a 'snitch', a 'buffoon' and a 'bulb-headed freak' resulted in his capture. Using a combination of intuition and graphology, I set a trap into which Coull blundered: unwittingly responding to an offer of a half-price Christmas hamper, his reply contained thirty seven separate hand-writing quirks identical to those of the anonymous author. In most cases in which handwriting analysis is employed, fifteen such instances are considered sufficient to establish responsibility for a text. Coull had effectively doodled a noose for himself.

Need I describe Coull's astonishment when, on delivery of his unexpectedly heavy hamper, he opened it to find nemesis in the form of the investigator he had dismissed as a 'bulb headed freak'? On this occasion, I was nearly undone when an attack of cramp gave Coull the opportunity to return the hamper's lid and secure it, confining me for several hours until Christine, eventually responding to calls from my mobile phone, arrived with assistance.

An otherwise decent man, unbalanced by a solitary character aberration, Alexander Coull has now returned to charity work and is often to be seen behind the counter of Pitlochry's Oxfam shop. I bear him no ill will.

 

Home

Glossary

Hamilton Live

Casebook