Richard Baker: When you're a policeman on a tiny island with 2,000 people in the Pacific Ocean, Monday mornings, are almost always very cruisy. But this isn't the case. When Dennis Murray picks up the phone at Norfolk Islands Police station on Monday, July 15, 1985, he's told there are four French spies on the

island who New Zealand police believe are linked to a terrorist act. The flagship of the environmental group Greenpeace was sunk today at the harbour in Auckland, New Zealand. One crew member was caught below decks and police recovered his body early this morning. Dennis has one job. Until a plane

load of Kiwi detectives arrive, make sure they don't, leave the island. Make sure they don't get on a plane. But he's got to find the Frenchman first, and to do this, he needs the help of Norfolk Island locals. So we let off a couple of dozen rounds out into the ocean and echoed the whole valley.

And then the lights all went out in the yacht and we thought, oh, shit, they're going to report us. It's a different ball game to anything that you have over there. It's totally different here. We had no idea what was about to unfold. I'm journalist Richard Baker. Forty years after the Rainbow

Warrior was sunk, I've come to Norfolk Island to find out what went down with the French spies and why they were allowed to leave. I've also uncovered previously secret Australian government files which make me wonder if Australia could have been a better friend to New Zealand. The mood in New

Zealand at the time was absolutely, frustration and disappointment. In Australia, we needed time, and time wasn't our friend. It's got to be done in 24 hours or stiff shit sort of thing. I've been talking to people who came face to face with the French spies. There's something suss about these guys.

He had a huge scar, down his chest, like a zigzag thing that ran down to his groin. Something had chant them up and to those who loved them, you say to me, if I had known that there would have been a dead man, I would never been involved in such an affair. The Rainbow Warrior bombing was and is a

huge story, but there's an even bigger one behind it about humankind's brilliance and appetite for destruction. The top of the fireball at this time, 40 seconds after detonation was five miles above sea level. More than 317 nuclear weapons were tested. They talk about how the sky turned red.

Suddenly the earth shook. Fallout spies on Norfolk Island. A new investigative podcast from SBS Audio find it at sbs.com.au/audio the SBS Audio app, or wherever you get your podcast. He said, I smell a rat. And in Norfolk, that means you think there's something fishy going on.

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