“I’m sure DI Doggett will appreciate it.”

Elliot nods, apparently satisfied. “So, anyway, it’s him, all right.”

“Gerald Cartwright.”

“Aye.” Elliot opens the freezer door and wheels out a trolley.

Tyler stares at the corpse. He has, of course, seen pictures and video footage of the live Cartwright, but it’s difficult to make a connection between those and the loose collection of bones and skin in front of him.

“I can’t really tell you much more.” Elliot reaches up to his ear for a cigarette that isn’t there. He tugs at his earlobe instead. “We can rule out the fire. There’s no evidence of smoke damage to the lungs, what’s left of them.”

This is not a surprise; they know the fire didn’t occur until six months after Cartwright’s disappearance. By that time the investigation was already being downgraded; Cartwright would have been long dead.

“The wound on his head wasn’t severe enough to kill him outright, but it wouldn’t have helped.” Elliot absently pats himself down but comes up empty. “If you twisted my arm, I might be tempted to say dehydration.”

“How long?”

He hesitates. “Two days max. The wound would have made him groggy, perhaps even hallucinatory.” He seems determined to limit Cartwright’s suffering. Tyler likes the man a bit more for that. “I can tell you he was definitely alive when he went in, though. There’s severe damage to the nails on the left hand; his right arm was broken, so he wouldn’t have been able to use it as effectively. And it was dislocated—pulled right out of the socket, I’m guessing when he was dragged behind the wall.”

“Cartwright was a big man, wasn’t he?”

“Eh?”

“In your opinion, could a fifteen-year-old boy have put him there?”

Elliot exhales a loud blast of air. “Depends on the boy, I suppose. It’s not impossible. It would explain why he was dragged and not carried. And there’s always the possibility he had help, of course.”

Tyler thanks him, and the doctor accompanies him out of the building, having finally extricated a cigarette from some unknown orifice. He lights it before they’re fully clear of the building, risking the wrath of the eagle-eyed receptionist. While they were inside, a brisk wind has developed and taken the edge off the heat. Elliot draws the nicotine into his lungs, exhales slowly, and blows the smoke onto the breeze.

“Were you around six years ago?”

Elliot breathes in deeply before answering. “I was ‘around,’ as you put it. But there wasn’t a body six years ago, remember? I wasn’t involved in the investigation.”

A supermarket delivery lorry reverses past them, its shrill alarm bouncing off the walls of the surrounding buildings. Tyler turns back to find Elliot studying him.

“I must say, Detective Sergeant, you’ve come a long way from playing with toy cars under the dining table.”