Villain heartily sodden in salt water! (5)

I believe the answer is:

baddy

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'villain' is the definition.
(bad guy in a story)

'heartily sodden in salt water' is the wordplay.
'heartily' says to take the centre (the inside or heart of the word).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'salt water' becomes 'bay' (bay is a kind of water. I am not sure about the 'salt' bit.).
The centre of 'sodden' is 'dd'.
'dd' inserted inside 'bay' is 'BADDY'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for baddy that I've seen before include "illain" , "Villain in book or film" .)

I've seen this clue in the Evening Standard.

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