I get nervous doing the nudge nudge, wink wink stuff.

I wrote a story last night about the search for Leicestershire's new chief constable.

Nothing surprising there, we've been waiting for some time now to find out who the new chief will be.

Three candidates were rejected after interview shortly before Christmas.

They just didn't come up to the mark apparently.

As a result the recruitment process had to begin again - and I'm sure that will have cost a few bob.

A few days ago I got the names of the four officers who have come forward since then and are shortlisted for interviews later this month.

The names came from someone who knows about these things, believe me.

I phoned loads of key people in Leicestershire and enlisted the help of people out of the county.

There was an awful lot of hush hush stuff along the lines of "I'll keep your name out of it, but could you just confirm I'm not going to look daft if I run these names."

So, after all these checks, we published these names today - a good three weeks before the interviews.

It was along the lines of: "The Mercury understands Mr So-and-so has applied for..."

One of them lives in Leicestershire.

I spent last night asking myself: "Does he read the Merc?"

And I've been wondering all day today: "Has he picked up a Merc yet?"

So, I've been nervous.

But it's my job to find news.

This isn't the greatest story ever told, but it's important and, ahem, it's in the public interest.

You hear a lot about 'the public interest'. Often it's a justification for printing some old tripe.

I think it works here because police officers often talk about 'public reassurance'.

(Well, the 'accelerated development, rapid promotion' types do.)

Some members of the public - not to mention police officers and civvy staff - might have been concerned that the first attempt to find a new boss had failed.

Although, frankly I admired the police authority for resisting pressure to appoint one of the three candidates they were faced with in December.

It showed strength I thought.

But we can all expect the force to be led by a strong team and we have a right to know who's in the frame.

It's a big job and whoever gets it will have a lot on his plate - the candidates are men - not least cutting £15 million off the budget next year and overseeing up to 150 civvy staff redundancies.

I should say the people in my story did not confirm the names, but merely gave me their thoughts on the recruitment process etc.