A man was found dead beneath a railway bridge shortly after dawn.

He carried no identification.

His clothes were expensive.

His boots were covered in mud.

Cryer examined the body.

There were no wounds.

The doctor believed the man had suffered a sudden collapse.

Then Cryer noticed something strange.

The man's clothes were completely dry.

The rain had been falling heavily for more than three hours.

His hat was wet.

His boots were wet.

But his coat, shirt and trousers were dry.

Cryer searched the surrounding ground.

A line of footprints led from the road to the body.

They stopped two yards away.

There were no footprints beneath the bridge.

No vehicle tracks.

No sign that the man had been carried.

Inside his pocket was a railway ticket for a destination he had never reached.

The name on the ticket was false.

The man was never identified.

Weeks later, a woman approached the station claiming she knew him.

She said he had visited her house the night before his death.

She had spoken to him for almost an hour.

She insisted he had been soaked through.

Cryer asked what time he had left.

"Eleven," she said.

The man was not found until six the following morning.

Cryer never established where he spent those seven hours.