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FAO A.C.C. D M Mitchum

Date As Postmark

M.I.T.

Partickhill Road,

Partickhill

Glasgow

Dear Sir,

Ref; Detective Inspector W. P. Costello

Please accept this letter in lieu of my resignation with immediate effect.

I’d like to say that this is a decision I have thought long and hard about. It isn’t. It was a decision made for me by those who believe that competent policing is having meetings and moving bits of paper around. Effective policing would have prevented the tragedy at Balcarres Avenue where a seven-year-old boy and his mother were stabbed to death. His name was Malcolm. Her name was Abigail.

He liked Glasgow Celtic and Star Wars. She was a qualified doctor. They are not statistics. They are people, sorry, were people.

A more interesting statistic is that of the family of four who once lived on Balcarres Avenue, three are now deceased. In case that didn’t come up in a meeting: George Haggerty’s wife Abigail is dead, his son Malcolm is dead and his adopted daughter Mary Jane is dead. Even when the DNA tests showed that Mary Jane was actually the biological daughter of DCI Colin Anderson, i.e. one of our own, you still don’t pursue George Haggerty as the obvious suspect. Even when it was revealed that Haggerty is walking away with a two-million-pound life insurance pay-out from Abigail’s death, you don’t investigate him. No, you hide behind Haggerty’s claims that I’m harassing him. You are being manipulated by a murderer.

If Police Scotland and the might of social services cannot join the dots and deduce that George Haggerty, the one man related to three dead people, might have something to do with their passing, well, it’s no longer an organisation that I want to either work for or be associated with. I can see a hundred ways through his alibi, but I am not allowed to pursue it. Such a cast-iron alibi as being caught speeding by Police Scotland is highly suspicious. I also saw a hundred ways to protect his child but social services did nothing. From this case you gained a promotion and I lost respect for the police service where I have worked for over twenty years.

So please accept the letter as my resignation with immediate effect.

Yours sincerely,

Costello