I have no doubt Jon Boutcher means business.
The head of Operation Kenova says he has spoken to MI5 top brass and senior republicans as part of his investigation into the informer known as Stakeknife.
A man accused of either carrying out, ordering or being somehow involved in more than 40 murders.
An agent who remained at the centre of IRA operations from the mid-1970s until the early nineties as head of 'internal security'.
A man who sentenced to death anyone suspected of being an informer while all the time being British military's eyes and ears within the paramilitary organisation.
When Freddie Scappaticci was first named as being Stakeknife in 2003, an allegation he has denied, senior Sinn Féin figures rallied around, press conferences and interviews were arranged and denials issued.
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The smokescreen was enough to create doubt and buy time to disappear and start a new life in England under the protection of the security agencies.
Compare that to Denis Donaldson, who two years later, in December 2005, was revealed as an informer in a very public way by Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams.
Donaldson was exiled and later murdered. Scappaticci remains very much alive - raising the question, why were republicans so determined to cover up and protect Stakeknife?
At that crucial time in the peace process was admitting infiltration of the organisation at such a high level just too embarrassing?
Or did Scappaticci threaten to open his own can of worms, reveal the dark secrets about the awful acts he had committed against his own community with the approval and assistance of senior republicans?
These are some of the questions Jon Boucher has had to ponder.
The head of Bedfordshire Police has interviewed Scappaticci, charging him with having extreme pornographic material on a laptop seized by his team.
He has removed any doubt that the west Belfast man is the informer at the heart of this investigation.
Senior members of Sinn Féin have been interviewed. Mr Boucher says some IRA members have given him information on their former associates. There will be recommendations for prosecutions, he insists.
The officer also claims to have interviewed former heads of government and senior members of MI5 to ascertain what they knew.
The idea that any member of the intelligence services will ever stand trial over the dirty war in Northern Ireland seems incredulous to those of us who have covered cold case and legacy investigations.
To raise families' expectations of such would be cruel and Jon Boutcher does not strike me as a cruel man nor one who is puppet of the state.
But he's not the first to try to shine a light on this world, and it would be optimistic in the extreme to expect him to succeed where those who have gone before him have failed.
It really is a case of waiting now to see if Jon Boutcher can deliver the impossible, and bring both the killers and the spooks out of the shadows and into the courtroom.
