‘No. I spoke to Tom Noy, who’d been seen in the pub with them, though I didn’t mention that in the paper. Tight-lipped bugger, unless you wanted to hear about his lawsuit against the MoD. I got nothing out of him except the distinct impression he’d put Ellery and Parker up to something but wasn’t about to say what it was because they’d wound up dead and he’d land himself in a whole load of trouble by spilling the beans. Then I heard from one of my colleagues in our Plymouth office that a contact he had on the Nancekuke staff claimed a guard had suffered a supposedly accidental bullet wound while on duty at the base over the bank holiday weekend. Coincidence? I doubt it, don’t you?’

‘A guard was shot?’

‘That’s right. Accidentally. Officially.’

‘What are you suggesting?’

‘I’m suggesting Ellery and Parker broke into the base to follow up some lead Noy had given them and then … God knows exactly what happened, but it ended badly for them. There was serious stuff going on at Nancekuke at the time. You messed with it at your peril.’

‘You’re saying they were killed by guards at the base and one of the guards got shot in the process?’

‘How can I say that? Alison Parker drowned. She had serious head injuries according to the post mortem, but they weren’t inconsistent with being thrown against rocks after drowning. As for Peter Ellery, the police concluded he’d drowned too, but his body was never recovered. Washed out to sea, or trapped in a cave. That was the verdict. Which you knew nothing about until recently, because your mother never told you. I’ve got that right, haven’t I?’

‘Yes. You have.’

‘And according to her, Geoff Nolan was your father.’

‘Yes. What about it?’

‘This photograph.’ Holgate delved further in the box file and pulled out a large black-and-white print. ‘I didn’t keep the article it appeared with. But the date’s on the back.’ He turned it over. ‘Ninth of April, 1977. Easter Saturday. They set themselves up by the side of the Redruth to Portreath road.’ He handed the picture to Nick.

He recognized Caro and April at once from other pictures he’d seen of them in their early twenties. He recognized Martin Caldwell as well. And he took a guess the other two in the group of five were Peter Ellery and Alison Parker. They were standing on a grass verge beside a busy road, thick with seemingly stationary traffic. Caro and April were holding a banner mounted on two poles. The lettering on the banner was big and angry. YOU ARE ENTERING A CHEMICAL WARFARE ZONE. Alison – a blonde-haired, attractive young woman in jeans and a sweater – was handing out leaflets for passing motorists to take if they wanted to. Martin was next to her, doing the same.