in that self-destructive as he may have been post-Barbara, it's one thing to spy in disguise behind enemy lines, and another to inform a complete stranger that you’re sleeping with your sergeant, but there you go.

Quite apart from anything else (there are more efficient ways of killing yourself), he wouldn't take a risk like that because he'd be too conscious of how awful a scandal a la Oscar Wilde would be for his mother (Peter's discreet enough about heterosexual liasons, which were obviously much less problematic).

Given the lines I scrawled in eyeliner on a box of paracetamol and codeine last night for want of a pen and paper, I am probably not one to talk about improbabilities.

I am intrigued.