At first, being part of the work-hard, play-hard club suited detective Tim Peck. Then it crushed him

Tim Peck was an experienced homicide detective who worked on some of the country’s most notorious murder investigations, including the Maria Korp “body in the boot” case.

Peck, who joined the police force in 1994, was old school police. He adhered to the three unspoken rules of policing: “Don’t go sick on night shift, don’t lose a fight and don’t lag on your mates,” and he was a card-carrying member of the work-hard-play-hard club. If Peck was on a homicide case, it wasn’t unusual for him to put in 18-hour days.

“It suited me because I loved the work,” Peck tells Naked City podcast host John Silvester. “I guess it was part of that culture. And I had an unwritten rule that I needed to know more about any investigation than anyone else.”

This superior knowledge, Peck says, allowed him to understand the case more deeply, fill gaps, and make links that others couldn’t.

But those very things that made him a crack detective, came at a cost.

“Even at that early stage, neglecting some of the important things. I had a wife, three kids by then. I wasn’t at home very often, I was drinking a fair bit. But still going OK mentally. I was still functioning really well at high levels.”

Then over time the “functioning” became harder. Gradually Peck’s mood changed, and towards the end he could be at home with his family and not talk for whole weekends.

“Work was invigorating, I really enjoyed work. It’s sort of that values point of what’s more important than solving a homicide?”

In this special episode of Naked City, Peck shares with John Silvester his rise and fall, and rise again, his mental health and addiction struggles, and the writings of a journal that have now become a book, The Invisible Obvious.

This episode includes a confronting discussion about suicide. If this content raises any issues for you, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.

John Silvester is a columnist for The Age. He has covered Melbourne’s crime beat and justice system since the 1970s, winning numerous accolades, including three Walkley Awards and six Melbourne Press Club Quill Awards. He has written or co-authored more than 30 books, including the Underbelly series, which was made into a TV series.

John Silvester lifts the lid on Australia’s criminal underworld. Subscribers can sign up to receive his Naked City newsletter every Thursday.