Secrets of Death by Stephen Booth Page A

Head weren’t aware of it, or what it was said to be. In this case, Hobb was a giant who emerged at night and threshed the farmers’ corn – but only as long as you rewarded him with a bowl of cream.
    It was a glorious vista from here, though, with the river forming a dramatic horseshoe below the Iron Age hillfort of Fin Cop. Upstream, the peaceful river turned to a raging torrent under the rock spires of Chee Tor. Here, the River Wye wound through a peaceful dense green landscape.
    And above it was the dramatic Headstone Viaduct, three hundred feet long, with five fifty-foot-span arches. It soared forty feet above the dale to connect with the opposite hillside. It had once served the Midland Railway, though it was now part of a walking and cycling trail.
    The building of this railway line had been a spectacular example of bold Victorian engineering. They had cut a route directly through the limestone landscape of the Wye Valley between Hassop and Buxton, creating no fewer than eight tunnels, two major viaducts and several smaller ones within a distance of just eleven miles. Yet the line had lasted hardly more than a century. In the 1960s it had become a victim of the Dr Beeching cuts.
    When it was built, this viaduct had been a particularly controversial project. The writer John Ruskin complained bitterly that the view had been destroyed purely so that ‘every fool in Buxton could be atBakewell in half an hour, and every fool in Bakewell at Buxton’. It was a passage often quoted, even today.
    Nature had performed its magic since Ruskin’s time. The raw slashes of the original cuttings had been covered over by vegetation and merged back into the landscape. Now the viaduct was a tourist attraction in its own right, forming the focal point of the spectacular view. People came from both Buxton and Bakewell to admire the vista from Monsal Head, as well as from much further afield.
    David Kuzneski had chosen well, thought Cooper. When the tourists and ice cream customers had gone home, there was no better place to spend a few quiet minutes. Even if those minutes were going to be your last. Or perhaps especially if they were your last.
    ‘Where exactly was he found, Carol?’ he asked.
    ‘On one of the benches. Just stretched out as if he was asleep, according to the member of the public who came across him.’
    ‘And the cause of death was lithium carbonate poisoning.’
    ‘That’s right.’
    It wasn’t a very common form of suicide. Lithium was sold under several brand names and was used for the treatment of recurrent bipolar depression and affective disorders. It evened out the highs and lows, the mania and depression. In some cases, it was added to the medication for patients who didn’t respond to anti-depressants alone.
    David Kuzneski had been prescribed lithium carbonate for a bipolar condition. Yet he’d also boughtan extra sixty 300mg lithium carbonate tablets for less than thirty pounds on a US internet site, without the need for a prescription.
    Kuzneski had taken the tablets as he sat on this bench at Monsal Head. He had still been alive when found, but only just. Despite medical intervention, he was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital.
    In the viewpoint car park, a series of wooden benches overlooked the dale and the viaduct. Each bench had a plaque attached to it, dedicated by families in memory of some deceased relative.
    ‘This one,’ said Villiers.
    The bench David Kuzneski had chosen bore a plaque. Cooper stood looking at it, reading the words.
    Rest here a while
, it said.
When you go, leave all your troubles behind
.
    Upperdale was close to Monsal Head. It lay just down in the valley, a slightly hair-rising drive along a narrow, winding road, where he had to dodge tourists’ cars coming the other way, as well as walkers and cyclists.
    At the site of Alex Denning’s suicide, they found a dozen cars tucked into a pull-in deep in the dale, their bonnets pointing towards the river. Beyond