Poor old Cyrus Wilkinson didn’t look that bad apart from, of course, the Y-shaped incision that split him from chest to crotch. Thankfully Dr. Walid had finished rummaging around in his organs and zipped him up before I’d gotten there. He was a white guy in what looked like a well-preserved midforties, bit of a beer belly but still some definition on his arms and legs—he looked like a jogger to me.

“And he’s down here because?”

“Well, there’s evidence of gastritis, pancreatitis, and cirrhosis of the liver,” said Dr. Walid. The last one I recognized.

“He was a drinker?” I asked.

“Among other things,” said Dr. Walid. “He was severely anemic, which might have been related to his liver problems, but it looks more like what I’d associate with a B12 deficiency.”

I glanced down at the body again for a moment. “He’s got good muscle tone,” I said.

“He used to be fit,” said Dr. Walid. “But recently he seems to have let himself go.”

“Drugs?”

“I’ve done all the quick checks and nothing,” said Dr. Walid. “It’ll be a couple of days before I get the results on the hair samples.”

“What was the cause of death?”

“Heart failure. I found indications of dilated cardiomyopathy,” said Dr. Walid. “That’s when the heart becomes enlarged and can’t do its job properly—but I think what did for him last night was an acute myocardial infarction.”

Another term I recognized from the what-to-do-if-your-suspect-keels-over-in-custody classes I’d taken at Hendon. In other words, a heart attack.

“Natural causes?” I asked.

“Superficially, yes,” said Dr. Walid. “But he really wasn’t sick enough to just drop dead the way he did. Not that people don’t just drop dead all the time, of course.”

“So how do you know this is one of ours?”

Dr. Walid patted the corpse’s shoulder and winked at me. “You’re going to have to get closer to find out.”

I don’t really like getting close to corpses, even ones as unassuming as Cyrus Wilkinson, so I asked Dr. Walid for a filter mask and some eye protectors. Once there was no chance of me touching the corpse by accident, I cautiously bent down until my face was close to his.