I should have done this first and I’m sorry. It’s an excellent idea. I have to keep my identity secret and I can’t tell you why. I’m not being coy.

I’m 50, and British. My background is in criminal law (defence!) and before that, I taught English at a university, although the last time I did anything was when I volunteered for a few years in human rights law. (I won’t bore you with why I’m not working just now.) But these things mean nothing, and are not who I am. Really I’m just a writer (a poet).

I don’t do numbers or geography. My bum is used to being oot the winday and I’m useless at everything. If a stick has a wrong end to get, I’m right there. But how else do you find the right end, or the right stick? All I want is to help to catch the Zodiac.

I’m a movie fan, and I did see Zodiac, at the pictures. I forgot it instantly and thought it was awful (to be fair, mainly due to the intrusive point of view of the child. I wouldn’t have done it that way.) I see now that it was pure fiction, of course, but I think the accompanying documentary is one of the best documentaries ever made. Superb editing and juxtaposition. (It also contains all the clews we need.)

Oh boy, my sleep patterns have been all over the place since I saw those two composites, three months ago. I do have a suspect, but I don’t think he acted alone. He lived in Berkely, San Francisco, and a canyon in LA. Also (I think) in Santa Cruz and definitely in several other states, all over. He lived in New York, Iowa and Colorado, for example. He is very rich. His friends had homes all over, including, I think, right next to each crime scene.

I accept that he is probably not the Zodiac, but many people connected with this case were his friends (including Melvin Belli and one of Mr Qvale’s brothers). There are other facts I can’t divulge, due to the dangers of constructive identification. We know that if he is the Zodiac, he is reading this. I was already investigating this charming, amusing person in connection with a murder in London, although, oddly enough, I now don’t believe he did that one.

I do not know my suspect (he wasn’t my dad) but he is a household name. His writing matches shockingly well (and he can’t spell for toffee) although I was rubbish – really rubbish – at forensics, because I don’t know any science. They made me take ‘Introduction to Medicine’ and something I can’t even spell (trigonometry?) before they’d let me do honours in it, and I barely scraped through – but I didn’t care. I just busked it as it just fascinates me so much. (I have never seen CSI, and am more of a Columbo fan.) I know that no one except an expert working with originals can judge handwriting.

Although the Zodiac is a bad speller, he also makes deliberate spelling mistakes, and seems to have been quite a fan of James Joyce, as was Manalli, whose wife my suspect knew. (I do hope he writes again soon.) We have to be careful not to assume 1 fact necessarily excludes another. For example, although I do think the Zodiac was gay, I don’t think that had anything to do with the motive, and was incidental.

My suspect is like Miss Marple in that everywhere he goes, people seem to die ridiculous deaths. Movie deaths. Flukes and freak accidents stick to this guy like burrs. (Police investigations just glide right off, though he has nearly been caught, especially recently.) But he may of course just be a freelance. In short, I am not obsessive about my POI and always try not to be biased when I look at evidence.

I’d never libel anyone, but I know I will offend people, and for that I am genuinely sorry. It will never be intentional. Either we feel free to say what we think, or we go round in circles forever saying only what we think others want to hear. I want to know when I’m wrong and don’t at all mind when people disagree with me.

For one thing, I’m an atheist and I see words such as ‘soul’, ‘spirit’ and even ‘mind’ as metaphors. I don’t believe in the supernatural at all. This is relevant because this case, in my view, concerns the occult, and it seems some of the cults infiltrated churches, especially, for example, the 7th Day Adventists, and Mormons. Of course, this is only my opinion, but some people won’t like me saying that.

I see religious beliefs as absurd, and all religions as cults, some of which are merely bigger than others. This does not mean I see people of faith as absurd. My late friend was Bishop of Cambridge! Another dear friend, a Jesuit priest, was just about the most intellectual man I ever met (and a Hopkins fan)!

I’ve had some great debates about the Bible, parts of which I love. No wonder, as King James hired only the best, including Ben Jonson and my favourite writer, the Earl of Oxford (otherwise known as Shakespeare). I’d also have no family or friends if I didn’t love and respect people who believe, for example, in talking bushes. I’m sure I believe dafter things than that, but just don’t know yet! Many of my friends think the Bible is the Word of God and I think it was a badly-edited collaborative novel with some great poetry.

We just agreed to differ on the facts. Respect is all. (Well, along with the ability to spot a joke without a smiley face after it.) I think I probably have more people praying for me than George Bailey – I am doomed but not damned!

I shall, of course, never discuss religion itself on the forum.

The other thing which will annoy people (or give the indignant, paid CIA debunkers an excuse to pretend they’re annoyed – hey, a person’s gotta make a living) is that I know cops lie and plant evidence. But I love cops. (They saved my life – as literally as that gets!) It’s so sad that the rotten cops give the real ones a bad name.

I do think the Zodiac was connected to other CIA-organised cult murder rings of the time, such as those of Berkowitz and Manson, and that whether the specs found at the crime scene were his or not, he may have murdered Sharon Tate. (My suspect knew her.) I think Zodiac was a Masonic group, several layers higher on the knowledge-proofed pyramid than the mind-controlled likes of Son of Sam and others, who were killing for (to them) different reasons. Crowley is the common denominator. Along with his mentor, I think Crowley was, aged 13, part of the Jack the Ripper ring, and murdered everyone who desecrated the tombs of Egypt – and may have been involved in the Black Dahlia murder – but that’s another story. (I am only going by evidence.)

To me – and I mean, what do I know? – the Zodiac case smacks of police involvement from day one, with meticulous planning and cover-up at the highest levels. (It’s fine if you think I’m a nut.) Some witnesses are lying, and I think many of the accepted facts are not facts at all. The key is to look at the motive for lying. (If, for example, I were Mike Mageau, I’d have done exactly the same thing.)

As Peter Sutcliffe told police when the Yorkshire Ripper ring was rumbled, ‘If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me’. I have always thought the word ‘clew’ is the Zodiac’s biggest clue. Think Labyrinth.

I have no axe to grind and am not interested in mind games or confrontation. Just good old-fashioned Lipton’s tea analysis of facts and probabilities. Even if we don’t like where they lead. As Hitchens said, you can have your own opinions, but you can’t have our own facts. I’ll definitely try to be clearer in what I say.

I’d rather sit around a table, but I guess this is the next best thing, if you’ll let me pull up an ether chair. My difficulty is that Google has removed results in Europe, for my suspect’s very name! Cross-referenced inquests have vanished without trace. If I told you who one of my suspects friends is, you’d spit out your beer, laughing. (I don’t have access to legal databases just now, but he’s been on police radar a few times.) Anything I say is only my utterly uninformed opinion. My hope is that someone else will get a lead from some obscure, irrelevant detail I mention in my ignorance. Only connect.

I’ll try to refrain as much as possible from mentioning my suspect, as I know it must be annoying, and, anyway, I have a dozen others to choose from, some of whom are already in deep real estate! If I mention him in passing, it’s only to throw the loose end of a clew of evidence to follow, to someone who already knows who he is.

Sorry this seems a bit long! but I just think you are all amazingly clever people and I’m happy to have found you. We can do this. Just one more thing sir. I absolutely adore San Francisco. I couldn’t tell you many of her street names but I could take you to all the pubs – I wish we could just all have a pint in Lefty O’Doule’s, then go and impair our hearing in The Saloon!! Party on.