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Baffled detectives are trying to establish the identity of a smartly-dressed pensioner who was found dead on a remote hillside 24 hours after catching a rush-hour train from Ealing Broadway.

At 9.07am on December 11, amid a bustling crowd of commuters, the man with black slip-on shoes and receding grey hair bought a one-way ticket from the west London suburb to Euston station.

At 10.45am the following day he was found dead, lying face up with his arms by his sides, on the bleak slope of Indian’s Head, 200 miles away in the Pennines.

The mystery of the man’s final pilgrimage has sparked what detectives today called one of the most unusual investigations in living memory.

Sgt John Coleman said: “I’ve been doing this job for a long, long time and I have never known anything like it.

“It’s sad really. There might be family who don’t know he’s dead.”

Meticulous research over the course of past seven weeks has uncovered the man’s last known movements as he travelled from London to the windswept spot overlooking Saddleworth moor, the infamous 1960s burial site of four victims of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley.

From Euston, he bought an £81 return to Manchester’s main Piccadilly station, where he was captured on CCTV making an inquiry at the ticket desk at 12.07pm.

He made his way – probably by taxi - to the tiny village of Greenfield on the edge of the Peak District, near Oldham.

At 2pm He stopped off in a pub, politely asking the landlord “how do I get to the top of that mountain?”, pointing through the mist to the 1,500ft peak. The astonished landlord urged him not to try.

As darkness fell he was seen by a walker on the narrow track to the summit, his heavy brown jacket pulled tight against the wind and driving rain.

His body was found by a mountain biker on a muddy track the following day. In his pockets were twelve £10 notes, the used train tickets and the return to London that would never be punched.

There were no signs of injury, and all indications are that he simply lay down and died.

Detectives in Manchester have now turned to Scotland Yard to help fill in the gaps and allow the man’s family to be told of his passing and attend his funeral.

He was in his 70s, white, slim, clean-shaved and had a large nose which may once have been broken. He wore a blue jumper over his white collared shirt, and blue corduroy trousers.

No documents, scars, marks or tattoos were found on his body. His DNA was checked and no match found against a series of databases.

Checks of missing person databases also yielded no clues as to his identity, and nor did enquiries with hospitals around west London. A post-mortem examination proved inconclusive and further toxicology tests are being carried out to establish a cause of death.

Detective Inspector Ian Harratt, Greater Manchester Police, has moved the focus of the investigation to London.

He said: “We do not know if this man is local or if he is visiting the area, but we are hoping that someone will realise this man is missing and contact police.

“Although we have had several phone calls from people with possible identifications for the deceased man from missing people around the country, which we are very grateful for, we have been able to rule these out as they are not the same person.”

Anyone with information is asked to call police on 0161 856 8972 or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.