When a man has a mistress he usually keeps it quiet even from his best friend, particularly if she is his best friend’s wife. Yet somehow the Screws has caught Boris and Portillo time and time again in recent months without the usual sale of a kiss and tell accompanied by the obligatory picture of the mistress in frilly underwear with a racy account of their romps. Petronella in her pants would have been quite something.

All this indicates that they were somehow extremely well informed. Guido was aware that for years it was easy to tap into the voicemails of one mobile phone network’s customers – when you got put through to their voicemail you just pressed * and typed the default last 4 digits of their phone number as the pin code. Most people never changed the pin number. That was very handy, but not something Guido would ever do of course…