‘They were under the floorboards.’

She gave a low-key whoop of delight. In the next bed a pleasant young crew-cut airman with his leg in plaster looked across but quickly went back to his Life magazine.

‘Did you take the guns away?’

‘Of course. We are now searching for Bertin himself.’

She sat back in her chair. She looked a small figure in this large impersonal ward but there was something in her that filled the space, something like those nuclear bombs out there on the base. Something unstoppable. She narrowed her eyes and smacked her hand on his wrist.

‘Stop teasing me,’ she said.

But he hesitated a moment longer. This was police business. He shouldn’t be telling her.

‘I found a small diary. Under the linoleum in the bathroom.’

‘You are very thorough.’

‘It’s my job to be.’ But he hesitated once more.

‘Come on, Léon,’ she said softly with the sideways look she gave when she knew he was uncertain how she would take something. ‘Let me hear it.’

‘In the diary was a list of your movements each day, what you do and where you go.’

To his surprise she shrugged. ‘I have got used to the idea that I am being watched. I don’t know why. Gilles Bertin seems,’ again the dull flush, ‘obsessed.’

‘Obsessed, maybe. Or reporting to someone.’

This time he felt a tremor ripple through her fingers, though her expression didn’t change.

She thought for a minute and then pointed out, ‘But none of that helps us.’ She moved closer, her voice a whisper. ‘Which means there must be something else you found.’

His fears for her safety were growing stronger. ‘I hope you came here with Clarisse, not alone,’ he said. ‘Where is she?’

‘Outside in the car.’ She waved a hand dismissively. ‘What is the something else?’

‘It’s a photograph of two men. Drinking in a bar together somewhere, laughing as if they know each other well.’

‘Who are they?’

‘A man who I believe, from your description, to be Gilles Bertin. Pencil moustache and deep chin cleft.’

‘And the other?’

‘Colonel Frank Masson.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Clarisse drove me home. She wouldn’t come into the house, so we sat in silence listening to the ticking of the engine of her cream Ford Vedette. One of the dogs wandered over and cocked a leg on the front wheel, but to my surprise she laughed.

‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘for all you’ve done. It has meant a lot to have you here.’

I stretched across the seat and enfolded my fragrant friend in my arms, and she stayed there, her head against mine, far longer than I expected. ‘Go back to Paris,’ I said with an affectionate hug. ‘It’s safer there.’