THE COURAGEOUS DETECTIVE

ARRIvING at the bench where the Skripals had collapsed, Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey, 39, (right) found a uniformed officer cleaning up after Sergei, who’d been violently ill at the scene. ‘Sooner you than me, mate,’ he quipped breezily. The theory doing the rounds was that the middle-aged man and young woman had overdosed on fentanyl, a cheap new street drug. Finding a credit card in Skripal’s pocket, however, he quickly discovered he was a Russian spy — just in time to prevent a colleague entering his house, which would likely have had fatal consequences. Wearing a mask, goggles, gloves and forensic suit, Bailey, 39, then went into the semi himself. But particles of Novichok touched his skin, and by the time he got home to his wife, Sarah, and two daughters, he felt weird. In the drama, we get a terrifying insight into his ordeal. Hallucinating, Bailey is convinced his house is ablaze. The next stage of the poison cycle is paranoia. When his family appear at his bedside he’s convinced he will contaminate them, panics and has to be restrained. Meanwhile, their house in a Dorset village is sealed off and all their possessions — even the children’s toys — have to be destroyed. Then, when the detective returns to work, he suffers a relapse and is signed off for several more months. Happily, life for the Baileys is now looking up. According to neighbours, they have sold the house and moved to another, not far away. Nick and Sarah Bailey also worked closely with the drama’s writer and executive producer Declan Lawn, confiding information they had told to no one outside their family.