‘He said several large condensers had been removed from a German nerve gas factory at the end of the war and put into long-term underground storage at Nancekuke while the scientists tried to figure out exactly what they contained. The tanks were labelled Rasierklinge – razor blade in German. Samples were taken of the contents under strictly controlled conditions for analysis.

‘The tanks deteriorated over time. They should have been safely destroyed, but no one was too sure how to do that. So they were simply patched up to prevent leaks whenever they looked worryingly rusty. Noy claimed his illness dated from when he was sent down into the bunker where they were stored to do a repair job on one of the tanks. He claimed the scientists had eventually come up with the chemical formula for the contents and had manufactured some of it. Super Sarin, it was nicknamed. Super deadly, by implication. They were still producing small trial batches, according to him.

‘Alison and Peter wanted to prove Noy was telling the truth. If he was, the authorities were lying about what was going on at Nancekuke and were putting local residents and holidaymakers at risk with their irresponsible experiments. Noy said he could show them how to get into the base without being detected. He had some keys he was supposed to have handed back when he was laid off but had hung on to. They’d open the doors that gave access to the bunker. Security was slapdash, according to him. There was nothing to prevent us photographing the condensers and their Rasierklinge labels and then going to the press with the evidence.

‘I didn’t like it. Was security really as lax as Noy claimed? And if the condensers were in such a poor state of repair, was it safe to go into the bunker? They’d been down there for more than thirty years by then. Alison and Peter dismissed my concerns. A few risks were worth taking for the sake of exposing Nancekuke’s dirty secret. We had a responsibility to tell the world what was happening behind that chain-link fence. And they were excited by the idea of getting away with it. I could see that was a big part of the appeal to them.

‘They were excited, while I was scared stiff. But Alison was determined to go, and that meant I was determined to go too. The others cried off. Too dangerous, they reckoned. And I reckoned they were right. But Alison and Peter were going whatever anyone else said. If I cried off too, my last chance with Alison was blown. That’s how I saw it, anyway.