‘I don’t mind telling you, Cliff,’ Gordon had said to me, ‘I advised Marty to forget the whole thing. To go for early retirement, take his package and get to buggery out with all his friendships intact and no bloody trouble.’

It was typical of Gordon that he would be frank in that way, both to Oldcastle at the time and to me later. But Oldcastle hadn’t taken Gordon’s advice. When, inevitably, yet another enquiry into police corruption was announced, Oldcastle submitted a sample of his material anonymously, was encouraged to supply more and eventually offered himself as a witness. His safeguard, supposedly, was that only the enquiring commissioners knew the areas and names his evidence covered, but it wasn’t long before that vessel leaked and Oldcastle got his first death threat. The first of many. The commissioners offered him protection, of course, but how safe does the fox feel when the huntsmen are offering him protection against the hounds? Mick Gordon had sent him to me after the death threats and here we were, discussing round-the-clock seclusion and protection for six days before his first appearance and for as long as he was singing.

One of my difficulties was that Oldcastle wasn’t very likeable. He appeared to lack a sense of humour, although stress might have blunted it-give him that. He was a driven type, by reputation a workaholic as a policeman. He had no family, a plus from my angle-no way to reach him through dependants; but he was a cold customer-not self-obsessed, which is uncongenial but human, but rather not concerned with other people, almost oblivious of them except as tokens in some bureaucratic, institutional game. Mick Gordon appeared to be his only close friend. That was understandable, Gordon had the touch to bring out the human characteristics, even in an automaton like Oldcastle.