Guido has been speaking to people who knew Baron Truscott when he was just a lowly local Labour councillor. They are amazed that nowadays he is the emissary of shady characters who would make good Bond villains. He is director of two firms controlled by Frank Timis, the twice convicted heroin dealer, who owns African Minerals, (formerly called the Sierra Leone Diamond Company). The widely rumoured idea that he might be some kind of “asset” for British intelligence is laughed at, Truscott would never have passed positive vetting they say.

Guido refuses to dismiss the possibility, after all, even in less progressive times than now, MI6 has had agents of ambiguous sexuality. Unfortunately they were double-agents.