Not there. That spot. I ran a finger over it and found a small round indentation under my fingertip. I pressed it.

A click. A faint shift above me.

I scrabbled back out, shut down the torch and found that the beaded length of decoration along the top edge of the desk-well had slid forward a fraction. I tugged at it. It glided towards me to reveal a shallow secret drawer the width of the gap. A grin stole on to my face. Secrets, Monsieur le Maire? A man like you always has secrets.

Inside lay four large envelopes. And a thick bundle of American dollars.

*

I swept the envelopes on to the desk surface, opened each one and removed the sheets of paper from inside. It felt like stepping on a landmine and I trod with care, but one exploded in my face. What I was holding in my hand were the detailed architectural drawings of the American air base, complete with underground tunnels and chambers. And the nuclear silos.

How? How did Durand get his hands on this piece of dynamite?

I laid them flat on the desk and risked popping on the desk-lamp. From my bag I pulled out my camera – a sub-miniature 9mm Minox that fitted into the palm of my hand. Little more than the length of a cigarette and the width of a matchbox, it was a brilliant piece of German technology in a shiny aluminium case. I pulled the ends to extend the case-body and reveal the lens and viewfinder, then got down to business.

Quickly I fired the shutter button. Snapped the camera shut and reopened it ready for the next frame. Simple and efficient, it was expert at photographing documents. The perfect spy camera.

Don’t leave home without one.

It took a conscious effort to keep my hand steady. I moved on to the other envelopes, all the time one eye on the door, ears alert for footfalls in the corridor. One envelope contained a bank document from the Banque Nationale pour le Commerce et l’Industrie, but I had no time to stop to read it. I clicked the button on the camera. The next envelope spilled out a glossy photograph of a beautiful naked young woman. I didn’t recognise her, but sure as hell she wasn’t his wife.

Voices seeped in from the corridor. A man and a woman in urgent conversation, the click of high heels approaching fast.

I snatched the contents from the final envelope, hurrying, fumbling, and out slid a newspaper cutting, yellowing with age and soft as feathers between my fingers. I wanted to stop. To sit. To cradle it in my hands. A picture of two young men in uniforms of the First World War, shoulder to shoulder, rigid. As though waiting to be shot. Above them ran the headline: MURDERERS OR HEROES? 53 MEN DEAD.