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‘Haven’t you?’ Tommy asked knowingly.

The Swedish policeman looked at the prisoner disdainfully. ‘Give me some names, if you’re so clever.’

Sneum laughed. ‘So that you can warn them and work out how I got the information? Don’t be so bloody stupid.’

‘I knew it,’ said Runerheim dismissively. ‘You don’t have any names.’

‘I knew your name, Runerheim, and I know a lot more. I have a lot of information that you really wouldn’t like to come out. You’d better be careful, or I’ll reveal the whole lot.’

Runerheim just stood there, seething. It was as though he were about to ask Sneum what he wanted, but had too much pride.

So Tommy made it simple for him: ‘You’d better find an excuse to release me and my friend—and quick.’ Then he turned his back and began to make his bed.

Runerheim stormed out of the cell, and Sneum listened as the furious clatter of the Swede’s footsteps on the stone corridor grew faint. Sitting on the bed, Tommy suppressed any sense of guilt by remembering the significance of the scientific and military intelligence he had sent to the British, and reminding himself that he needed to be free to do such work again. Furthermore, it was not only the Swedish spy ring that was in danger of being blown if he were ever delivered for torture by the Germans. People he knew and cared for, professionally and personally, would be at risk if he cracked.

Back in Copenhagen, Niels-Richard Bertelsen was well aware that his brother-in-law’s postcard from Stockholm hadn’t arrived, and it didn’t take the policeman long to find out why. Late night checks in Politikommissaer Odmar’s office revealed that the Danish police chief had approved Tommy’s long-term incarceration in Malmo. Bertelsen knew that Tommy would want him to start issuing threats to all the relevant people in Copenhagen, warning that agents in Nazi-occupied Europe risked discovery if the Swedish didn’t let Sneum go. However, Bertelsen knew he could never go through with it. So he hoped Tommy would prove convincing enough in Malmo to win his ugly game of brinkmanship without further assistance.

Since Tommy believed he could be handed back to the Germans at any time, he hadn’t lacked motivation as he played his part. He felt abandoned, and a cornered animal’s survival instinct had kicked in. Later, he insisted:

I needed to get to Britain because I had a lot of important information. More important, I thought, than anyone else would have. Remember, we had never had any reply from the British about the German super-bomb intelligence. On another level, where the genuine names on the list I had given to Bertelsen were concerned, it was my life or theirs. To me, they were just names. If you were going to be put up against a wall and shot, what would you do? I gambled that the Swedes would see sense so that no one was put in any danger.

Chapter 39

THE CONSEQUENCES

BEFORE MAY HAD COME to an end, prison guards marched into Sneum’s Malmo cell with Arne Helvard. ‘Get your things together,’ said Helvard with a smile. ‘Looks like they’re finally releasing us. Christophersen has already gone.’

Starved of company for so long, they talked without sleeping as the night train made its way from Malmo to Stockholm. If there were sensitive matters to discuss, they moved into the corridor outside their compartment. No guards watched over them, but Tommy occasionally imagined that some of their fellow passengers might be members of Sweden’s secret service. As long as these observers said nothing and did nothing, Tommy didn’t care. As for Karstengren, Runerheim and the rest, they could all go to hell.

When the two Danes arrived in the Swedish capital the following morning, Sneum sent the vital postcard with its coded message to Bertelsen. As he did so, he told Arne how he had secured their release. Helvard looked shocked, scared and grateful all at once. Tommy, for his part, was relieved that his brother-in-law would no longer be dragged into his cut-throat world. Now that the dirty tricks were no longer necessary, they could focus