Secrets of Death

by Stephen Booth

  ‘So I suppose theoretically someone could be murdered this way,’ said Villiers. ‘And then the killer could remove the bag and canister.’

  Abbott shook his head. ‘No, there would be clear signs of a struggle. You wouldn’t let someone put a bag over your head without fighting them. There’s nothing like that in this case. Besides,’ he said, ‘the bag and the canisters are still here. No one took them away.’

  Villiers looked at Cooper as he turned away from the car.

  ‘Another one, then,’ she said.

  ‘Looks like it.’

  It was hardly the first time. Every week now, someone drove out into the Peak District to spend their final moments in a favourite picturesque location. Heeley Bank was just the latest.

  Cooper was struggling to understand the motivation. Did that last glimpse of the hills really make the moment of dying easier? Could the sound of the wind, a running stream or the bleat of a sheep help to ease the pain of that inevitable slide into death?

  People must believe it did, he supposed. Unfortunately, no one was still around to testify whether it was true or not.

  Cooper reached into the car and picked a handful of items off the top of the dashboard. A parking ticket timed the previous afternoon, which had been stuck to the windscreen. A photograph in a card frame. Two couples, probably in their thirties. One might be Roger Farrell, but there was no point comparing it to the face of the dead man, which had become unrecognisable.

  ‘Is there a photo driving licence?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Abbott passed him a plastic evidence bag. Yes, it looked like the same person, though with a bit more hair in the photograph and a bit less weight. In fact, there was a distinct resemblance between the two men in the picture, the second perhaps a few years younger and a few pounds heavier. Two brothers with their wives? They looked close, though appearances could be deceptive.

  ‘There’s something else in there,’ said Villiers. ‘I can’t quite see what it is. It’s slipped down at the bottom of the windscreen.’

  Cooper fished into the gap with a gloved finger and retrieved a card. He thought it was a business card. A bit pretentious, but that was the style in some businesses. Fancy design in your cards. It was all about presentation.

  But it wasn’t a business card. Not the usual kind anyway. There was no name on it, neither a company nor an individual. There was no office location, no phone number, not even an email address. It simply carried a string of numbers and letters like an online password. And above it were three words:

  Secrets of Death.

  5

  ‘Suicide tourists,’ said Detective Constable Luke Irvine with an exasperated roll of his eyes. ‘They’ll be organising coach parties next. A cheap day out in the Peak District. No return ticket required.’

  Cooper frowned. Suicide tourists? It was the sort of lurid phrase that would find its way into a newspaper headline if it was repeated to the wrong person. And then everyone would be insisting that something should be done about it. Was it the job of the police to stop suicides? Probably – everything else seemed to be these days. Police officers covered for the jobs of social workers, ambulance drivers, paramedics and midwives. Why not counsellors and mental health professionals too?

  The real question wasn’t why people killed themselves. It was why they were doing it here.

  Cooper was very aware that it was threatening to have a bad effect on the tourist trade as the height of the summer season approached. Families were getting nervous of bringing their children into the Peak District, for fear of what they might find: a reality of death that would scar their offspring for life.

  Given the number of tourists the national park attracted, it was unlikely the average visitor would stumble across a body. In fact, the odds were very much against it. But statistics and probability factors never counted for anything in the face of popular perception. People feared violence, though they had never witnessed it. They were terrified of flying, though they were more likely to get run over crossing the road.

  And everyone was afraid of a reminder of death. That wasn’t what they signed up for when they were tempted by the national park’s tourism leaflets. It wasn’t part of the unwritten contract, that promise they were given of peace and tranquillity. Even the sight of a dead sheep or the squashed debris of roadkill tended to attract complaints. A human corpse bloating in a car was no one’s idea of a nice day out.

  ‘This Roger Farrell. Who was he exactly?’ asked Cooper.

  While he and Carol Villiers had been at Heeley Bank, DC Becky Hurst had been busy on the phones making enquiries into Mr Farrell’s background. They’d located a sister living in Nottingham and they’d spoken to some of his colleagues at his place of work.

  Hurst snapped open her notebook. She had a brisk attitude and a businesslike air that Cooper liked. She was someone who would watch for reactions and absorb impressions, chipping in an unexpected question. She seemed to approach every job the same, big or small, clutching her notebook and phone in her hand, her expression alert and eager. She had been the perfect choice to work with his recently retired old-school DC Gavin Murfin. She’d been the only person who could keep Murfin under control and pointing in the right direction. In the past, when the two of them were working together, Hurst had looked like a young Border Collie shepherding an ageing ram.

  ‘This is what we know so far,’ she said. ‘It isn’t much.’

  ‘Go on, Becky.’

  Hurst reported that Mr Farrell seemed to have barely known anyone. His colleagues communicated with him mostly by email from the other end of an open-plan office. Some of them had struggled to remember what he even looked like. For them, Roger Farrell seemed to have been a distant blur in a suit.

  So what about his private life? Not much there either. Farrell wasn’t a member of any local clubs or organisations, so far as they could tell from the information his sister had provided. He wasn’t the kind of man who took part in the pub quiz night or attended any of the nearby churches. He never showed any interest in politics, sport or charity fund-raising.

  So Farrell obviously wasn’t one of life’s joiners. Yet his final decision had been to join the suicide movement. But was that joining? Or was it the ultimate opt-out?

  ‘Heeley Bank seems to have been a very deliberate choice,’ said Villiers. ‘He’d driven all the way from Nottingham to be there. It’s not as if he passed it every day. He made a special trip to end his life.’

  ‘And there was no CCTV at the information centre,’ said Hurst. ‘That might have been a factor in his thinking. Too many cameras in the city. He didn’t want to be on video.’

  ‘I suspect there was more to the location than that,’ said Cooper. ‘It meant more to Mr Farrell than just a quiet corner without cameras. Remind me – where was that last suicide we had? Monsal Head?’

  ‘That’s right. A great choice,’ said Irvine.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I mean – if you wanted a good view.’

  When Irvine had first made it into CID, Cooper had been reminded of himself as a young DC, not quite knowing what was going on most of the time but reluctant to ask too many questions in case he seemed dim or was laughed at. Irvine had soon got over that phase – faster than Cooper had himself all those years ago. Every generation seemed to mature more quickly than the last. Luke had begun to gain that air of cynicism more associated with world-weary middle-aged detectives like Gavin Murfin.

  Cooper sometimes thought the structure of his team was a bit fragile. He’d noticed that Irvine often teased Becky Hurst for her opinions, and occasionally he’d been forced to step in and ask him to tone it down. Politically, it was obvious the two of them were on opposite sides. Not that politics was openly discussed in the office – it was part of their duty to remain impartial. Yet, in conversation, their views often clashed. Hurst particularly hated it when he called her Maggie Thatcher.

  ‘And there was one before that in Upperdale, on the Rive
r Wye,’ added Hurst. ‘Those locations are pretty close together, if it means anything.’

  ‘At least they’re going for remote locations outside of town,’ said Irvine. ‘I mean, we haven’t found one sitting on a bench by Lovers’ Bridge or dying over a plate of Bakewell pudding in Granny Eyre’s tea shop, have we? They’re looking for a quiet spot to do it in.’

  Hurst shook her head. ‘The Heeley Bank Information Centre isn’t quiet any day in the summer. Nor is the car park at Monsal Head.’

  ‘Well, not during the day. But at night …?’

  ‘I wonder if they might have been in contact with each other.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘The way most of us make contact with people who have similar interests – on the internet.’

  ‘A suicides’ discussion group, you mean?’

  ‘I bet there are lots of them out there, if you look.’

  ‘I’ll do an online search, shall I?’ said Irvine.

  Cooper was looking at the card he’d recovered from Roger Farrell’s BMW. The lettering was on a black background. Funereal black. The delicate gold edging did little to make it look more cheerful. Secrets of Death? What secrets? Did it refer to the methods to use when committing suicide? Surely there was no secret about that. An overdose, a hanging, a leap from a high place, a convenient railway line and a high-speed train. There were limited permutations. People took the opportunities that were available, whatever means came to hand. They weren’t always the best methods. And they didn’t always work either. Yet the cases they had recorded so far had all been entirely successful.

  Secrets of Death. Written with capital letters too, as if it was a name or the title of a book.

  ‘Do that, Luke,’ he said. ‘And when you’re doing a search, look for this phrase in particular.’

  ‘Secrets of Death? Sounds a bit Goth. But okay.’

  ‘It will come down to a question of why, won’t it?’ said Villiers. ‘That’s the real secret. The motivation.’

  ‘Depression, bullying, guilt, divorce, a terminal illness,’ said Hurst. She rattled off the list like a railway station announcer repeating the litany of station stops for the thousandth time. ‘People can just start to feel there’s no point in going on.’

  ‘Well, those are some of the reasons,’ said Cooper. ‘Let’s keep an open mind. There could be lots more.’

  ‘But why kill yourself?’

  ‘Endorphins,’ said Irvine.

  ‘Endorphins?’ repeated Cooper, surprised. ‘What do you mean, Luke?’

  ‘Well, you’ve heard about near-death experiences.’

  Villiers and Hurst looked at Irvine, the former stony-faced and the latter with a sigh of exasperation, as if to say ‘Here it comes’. Luke had these moments, when he liked to throw in ideas from left field. Cooper suspected he was a regular reader of Fortean Times. He always seemed to know about the newest conspiracy theories, the latest UFO sighting, the accounts of mystery big cats in the English countryside.

  ‘Is this relevant, Luke?’ said Villiers.

  ‘I think it might be,’ said Irvine defensively.

  Cooper saw his expression turn mulish. If Luke was discouraged, he would feel excluded from the discussion.

  ‘Let DC Irvine get it off his chest,’ said Cooper.

  Hurst sighed again and lowered her head as if she was going to bang it on the table. Cooper looked at Irvine expectantly. ‘Luke?’

  ‘Well, depending on your beliefs,’ said Irvine carefully, ‘NDEs can be regarded as hallucinations, spiritual experiences or proof of life after death. But doctors say near-death experiences are due to endorphins released by the body at the moment of death. They create chemical changes in the brain, you see.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, everyone who has ever had a near-death experience reports an overwhelming sense of peace and well-being, and a feeling of being separated from the body. The final stage is a perception of walking through darkness towards light. Whatever an NDE might be, it isn’t painful. Far from it. It’s always described as a wonderfully positive experience.’

  ‘So your point is?’

  ‘Endorphins,’ said Irvine. ‘That’s what it’s all about. It’s not just about death. These people were all seeking the release of endorphins at the moment of dying. It’s a possibility, isn’t it? Like a drug that people crave. A special high. And in this case, there’s only one way to get it.’

  ‘Actually, I’ve heard you can release endorphins by eating plenty of dark chocolate,’ said Villiers.

  ‘Or just by having a laugh or a good gossip,’ said Hurst. ‘Maybe that’s why men commit suicide more often than women. Not enough chocolate and not enough gossiping.’

  Cooper couldn’t argue with that. There might well be some truth in it.

  Ben Cooper always felt frustrated when he had to watch his DCs leaving the CID room and heading out to do all the legwork on the ground.

  It was one of the downsides to promotion – the responsibility and the need for delegation that came with it. Young detectives like Luke Irvine and Becky Hurst had to be allowed to use their initiative and take some of the responsibility. Which sometimes meant he had to stay in the office, tied to his desk.

  And then there was all the paperwork. Of course, he had known it would happen when he’d accepted the step up to DI. If he hadn’t known already, there were plenty of people waiting to tell him – some of them with unrestrained glee, knowing they would never get promoted themselves and wouldn’t have to deal with it.

  The big issue of the moment was overtime. The finance department was being very persistent about it. Police officer overtime was the main controllable cost in an organisation like Derbyshire Constabulary, and the bean counters spent a lot of their time desperately trying to analyse and rationalise the figures from inevitably poor information they were given by front-line staff.

  From Cooper’s point of view, it was the most difficult thing in the world to judge how long an officer should spend investigating a crime. At one time, he would have expected a member of his team to explore every available avenue before closing an inquiry on the grounds of insufficient evidence. It was probably what the law-abiding public still expected too.

  But that was when resources weren’t so tight. Now crime investigation was reduced to a budget calculation. When enough time and money had been spent, the plug had to be pulled. It could surprise and anger a victim of crime when they found out. In the case of house burglaries, if immediate forensic evidence wasn’t present at the scene in the form of fingerprints or DNA, there was often little the police could do except issue an incident number for the insurance claim.

  Some of it was above Cooper’s pay grade. A proportion of the force’s budget was spent on partnerships. The suspicion was that the money might be covering the shortfall for local authorities. Only the Police and Crime Commissioner and members of the senior management team would know that for sure.

  One thing he definitely had to worry about was the cost of any forensic services he asked for. At the serious end of crime, in a large murder inquiry, money was rarely a major issue. But, in lower-priority cases, forensic resources were too expensive to be justified. Even with the new forensic centre opened at Hucknall in Nottinghamshire to pool resources between neighbouring forces, Cooper had to think twice about whether he could justify the cost.

  * * *

  A few minutes later, Detective Superintendent Hazel Branagh was frowning at Ben Cooper over a new pair of glasses. They made her face look as though all her features had been compressed to a small space behind the lenses. As a result, she looked even more intimidating than usual.

  ‘Too many bodies in too many cars,’ she said. ‘It’s becoming an epidemic.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Cooper. ‘Or a small outbreak, at least.’

  He waited, wondering why everyone had started sounding like headline writers. He could guess which phrase was coming next.

  ‘Suicide tourism,’ said Branag
h. ‘That’s what they’re calling it, am I right?’

  ‘Some of them are, ma’am.’

  ‘It shouldn’t be encouraged. It gives a bad impression of our area.’

  Cooper nodded. That was all very well, but how did you discourage your boss from using the phrase?

  The Detective Superintendent’s office had been moved in the latest reorganisation of E Division headquarters. Its new location was as far as it could possibly be from the CID room and the detectives actually working on inquiries.

  When he was sent for, Cooper had to climb a flight of stairs and walk down a long corridor that turned a corner twice in its length for no apparent reason. The lights were on time switches and operated by sensors. They came on as he approached, then went out again when he’d passed.

  It was a cost-saving measure, of course. The finance department probably had a spreadsheet showing how much the force’s spending was reduced by not leaving the lights on. Was it more than the sensors and installation of time switches had cost? That wasn’t a certainty. The amounts probably came from different parts of the budget, so weren’t actually added up in any way that made sense. Cooper didn’t know. It wasn’t his area of expertise.

  One thing he was sure about, though. On a June day in bright sunshine, those corridor lights didn’t need to be on at all.

  ‘Do you think there’s something behind it, Ben?’ asked Branagh, her use of his first name indicating a more relaxed mood.

  ‘Yes, that’s my instinct.’

  Some senior officers would have laughed and raised an eyebrow when he referred to his instinct. But Hazel Branagh knew him by now. And, for his part, he trusted his superintendent well enough to know she wouldn’t dismiss what he said.

  It had taken him a while to warm to Detective Superintendent Branagh. He’d once thought of her as a negative influence in E Division. He’d even pictured her sitting in her office casting a dark spell, like Lord Voldemort. That seemed very unfair now. He’d been judging her purely from outward appearances. It was because she always looked so serious, never smiling at a joke or even at good news. And there was something about the way her face was constructed that made the corners of her mouth turn down and her jaw fall into a disapproving grimace. With her broad shoulders and severe hairstyle, she did look intimidating. Many junior officers were frightened of her.