“He may look a bloody old man, Shelby, but he’s not much older than you.” The inspector bent down, his hand slipping under the water to the back of the head, his fingers exploring and finding the sticky section where the skull moved under pressure. “He’s been living rough ever since his family chucked him out a couple of years back. He started out as a wino cheap booze laced with me ths or surgical spirit then he progressed to heroin.”

“Heroin!” exclaimed Shelby, his torch beam slowly creeping over the emaciated figure at his feet. “That’s an expensive habit.”

“Well, by the look of him,” observed Frost, “I doubt if he wasted money on nonessentials like soap and food. He used to be a lovely kid. A cheeky little sod. Look at him now!” He prodded the body with his foot, then turned away. A match flared as he relit the butt. “I suppose you haven’t been through his pockets?”

“Not yet,” the constable admitted. “He’s a bit messy.”

“Well, he’s not going to get any bloody cleaner floating in pee, is he?

Is there any way to stop this damn water rising? It’s up to my ankles.

I feel like a passenger on the Titanic.”

Shelby paddled over to the far end of the fetid room leaving Frost in the dark. “I think it’s this one over here sir.”

“Don’t give me a running commentary, son. Just fix it.”

Shelby’s torch beam bobbed, then pointed upward to spotlight a cast-iron cistern tank which was meant to flush the urinal stalls at regular, hygienic intervals. It was brim-full, and water was cascading over the sides and down the wall. Shelby reached up and plunged his hand inside the tank. He jiggled the ball cock up and down a couple of times, and suddenly the cistern gulped, emptied itself, then filled up and cut off. Satisfied, She splashed back to Frost.

“That’s done it, sir. If we can shift the body it should unblock the drain and let the water flow away.”