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Crichton’s State of Fear scenario, this would most often cause a paralytic type of death leaving post-mortem evidence of that mechanism. One could posit a pure snake venom cardiotoxin but that would have been very hard to purify in that era and, due to the availablity and lack of means of chemical detection at that time, of digitalis-type cardiotoxic ‘poisons’, rather pointless.
    And that about wraps it up for snake poison, unless it was injected into Somerton Man through that ‘boil mark’ or he put his hand down on a snake. In either eventuality, he was unlikely to retain his dinner or light a smoke.Oh, well, it was worth a try. And I am so grateful to all the kind persons who bent their minds to my problem. And my friends, who must feel seriously nagged by now. Sorry. But you have to admit that it is fascinating.

Chapter Three
    The Wordly Hope Men set their Hearts upon
    Turns Ashes – or it prospers; and anon
    Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face
    Lighting a little Hour or two – is gone.
    The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam , stanza 14
    And so matters rested, with the overworked Adelaide police force receiving answers to their requests for information from all over the world. J. Edgar Hoover wrote back to say that Somerton Man’s fingerprints were not on record with the FBI and no one at Scotland Yard had identified them. Somerton Man was entirely, as police parlance says now, ‘off the grid’.
    He had no passport, no demob certificate, no ration card, no seaman’s ticket, no union membership card. Without these things, or at least one of them, he would have found work hard to come by in Australia, where the police were prone to ask for identification from anyonewho was in any way different – on the street late at night or consorting with known criminals (my dad said you could do that any night just by walking down Rundle Street) or simply unknown to them personally. Losing, abandoning or being robbed of his identity card was a very serious matter for Somerton Man.
    I have my father’s demobilisation certificate before me and I am wearing his Redheads T-shirt, which I bought for him, as I type. He feels very close to me at the moment because I have just sorted out his papers, three years after he died. The beige booklet instructs me that Army Number VX501875 Signaller Alfred William Greenwood of West Footscray followed the correct procedure to get out of the army. On 25 March 1948, he was medically examined and X-rayed and found to be fit. On 24 April 1948, he received whatever pay was owing – twenty-four pounds and five shillings, to be exact. And suddenly he was unemployed, dropped at Central Station in Adelaide and given a railway warrant to take him back to Melbourne. No longer a number but a free man.
    My father went home to see his mother and his sweetheart, my mother. (He even named his cat Jeannie, so she knew he was serious). Somerton Man, on the other hand, walked into oblivion. More can now be guessed about his movements after he arrived at Central Station on 30 November. He bought a ticket for the Henley train. He then requested a wash and a shave and was told that the station amenities were closed and he would need to go to the City Baths, which housed not only a swimming pool but an actual set of bathtubs for travellers who needed a wash. This detour would have caused him to miss the train, so when he returned to Central and checked his suitcase, all shaved and clean, he decided to take a bus. Both tickets in his pocket are now explained. I find it very pitiable that he groomed himself so neatly for what was about to come.
    Adelaide Central Railway Station. It was from here that Somerton Man set out on his one-way journey to the seaside.
    So, how much do we know about what happened next? Somerton Man took the bus to Glenelg and would have arrived there by noon. He is next seen sitting on the beach and – probably – dying at 7 pm on a hot