London – A post-mortem examination on the body of pop icon George Michael, who died on Christmas Day after a chart-topping career and years of drug-taking, has proved “inconclusive”, police said on Friday.

“The cause of death is inconclusive and further tests will now be carried out. The results of these tests are unlikely to be known for several weeks,” a police statement said.

Police said earlier they were treating his death as “unexplained but not suspicious”. The post-mortem was carried out on Thursday.

Michael’s partner Fadi Fawaz said he had found the star “lying peacefully” in bed at his home in the village of Goring on the River Thames west of London.

His manager Michael Lippman told Billboard magazine that the cause of death appeared to be heart failure.

Tributes have poured in all week from heartbroken fans leaving flowers, candles and emotional messages outside his homes in Goring and London.

Michael’s family said Tuesday they were “touched” by the long line of tributes, including ones from Madonna and Elton John.

“The family and close friends of George have been touched beyond words by the incredible outpouring of love for him in the hours and days since his death,” the singer’s publicist said in a statement.

“Contrary to some reports, there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding his death and from the bottom of our hearts we thank those who, rightly, have chosen to celebrate his life and legacy”.

“Last Christmas”, one of Michael’s best-selling singles from his time in the pop duo Wham!, returned to the British charts, the Official Charts Company said on Friday.

The festive hit climbed to number seven in the charts – its first time in the top 10 sales since it was released 31 years ago.

The song has also become the second most streamed track of the week, with 3.6 million streams.

Michael notched up police cautions for cannabis and crack cocaine possession in his final years and in 2010 was sentenced to eight weeks in jail after crashing his 4×4 into a London shop while under the influence of cannabis and prescription medication.

In 2011, he spent several weeks in hospital in Vienna after contracting pneumonia while on tour, later saying he had come close to death.

Stories about Michael’s quiet philanthropy for children and HIV charities have been shared widely since his death, as well as a report of his anonymous £15,000 (S$26,800) donation to a woman who could not conceive to get IVF treatment.

Born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou to a Greek Cypriot father and English mother in north London in 1963, Michael shot to fame with the band Wham! and sold more than 100 million records in his career.

He met Andrew Ridgeley at high school and the pair went on to form Wham! in 1981.

With their good looks, perma-tans, highlighted hair and hedonistic image, the duo captured the go-getting spirit of the age and fast became one of Britain’s biggest pop acts with a string of hits including “Last Christmas” and “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go”.

Michael only revealed in public that he was gay in 1998 after being arrested by police in Los Angeles. He went on to become a major campaigner and donor for gay rights and HIV charities.

The star later said he had not wanted to come out while his mother was still alive because she would be concerned he had contracted HIV.

Read also: George Michael’s greatest hits remind us of how epic he truly was
Details emerge of George Michael’s many quiet acts of kindness

The wait is almost over. Sherlock will be back in two days’ time.

Season 4 of the British drama is said to be much darker than the last season, and it promises tears, laughter, shocks, surprises and extraordinary adventures.

Said co-creators, writers and executive producers Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss: “Ghosts of the past are rising in the lives of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, and terror and tragedy are looming.

“This is the story we’ve been telling from the beginning, and it’s about to reach its climax.”

Benedict Cumberbatch returns as the mercurial sleuth along with Martin Freeman as dedicated partner John Watson, who is preparing for his biggest challenge ever – becoming a father.

The first episode of Sherlock Season 4 will be available on BBC Player from Monday, right after it airs on BBC One in the United Kingdom. It will be available on BBC First (StarHub Ch 522) within 24 hours.

Here, Cumberbatch, 40, gives an update on what to expect in the new season, working with babies and Sherlock’s appeal.

How do we find Sherlock, John and Mary (Watson) at the start of Season 4?

There are a lot of new things going on, for example, there is a baby.

So parenting responsibilities have kicked in for the super sleuths. Childcare is never easy, but it gets even more complicated when crime is involved.

John and Mary (Amanda Abbington) are new parents, how does Sherlock feel about that?

I think Sherlock feels very protective towards them as a family, but he is not a natural or a figure of authority when it comes to a newborn.

I hope my skills and interaction with my own (son) are a little bit more engaged than his are.

He is seemingly indifferent, which is comic at times, but it is all underpinned with a deep love, and he is a guardian angel really.

They say never work with children or animals, yet here you work with both. How did you find it?

We had an interesting dog in the first episode. He was sweet but was a bit afraid of being in the centre of town, afraid of too many people and not great on hard surfaces.

We were in Borough Market, with lots of people around, on concrete and tarmac.

Cut to Amanda literally pulling a bloodhound around London who was supposed to pull her around London. That was fun.

The babies have been pretty amazing. I am a father, and I know how difficult it is to get anything in tune with a baby’s schedule. It keeps you in the moment. I love those elements that make it more difficult.

What is so appealing about playing the character of Sherlock?

Whatever scale I am working on as an actor, it is about telling interesting stories and just losing myself in an experience.

There is a degree of comfort in coming back to something you know.

It is nice getting the band back together and playing certain aspects of him.

I don’t return to roles very much, even this has only been 12 episodes and one special so far; we haven’t made that many.

The final rendering of what we produce is very filmic and very high quality, and that’s saying something because it is not only low budget when it comes to what designers in every department have to work with in comparison to a big film, but it is also the amount of time we have to perfect it in.

How much of Sherlock’s temperament is driven by the apparent inadequacies of others rather than his own desire for perfection?

Oddly, I think Sherlock’s temperament is more shaped by the fact that he is human and trying to be superhuman.

The amount of stuff that we call polite civilisation is a huge distraction to this man, who has to think on an unparallelled level of complexities.

It is not really that the world is stupid; it is just that for him to be clever, he has to really drown out a lot of noise and what he permanently gets surprised by, and what I think is his real weakness, is sometimes not seeing what is right in front of him.

So it is a complex relationship he has with the world.

He needs it to be that way in order to conquer it, but at the same time, the way he engages with it often blinds him to the most obvious.

That’s great from a story point of view because people don’t see things because he doesn’t see them.

His stupidity is also the world’s brilliance, which is why there are things, people, and events which overtake him.

He is not unhuman; he is human, and he is fallible.