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As a first step, they made their way to the British Legation at Strandvagen. There, Tommy was relieved to find the familiar face of Henry Denham, the Naval Attaché, still serving Britain from his Scandinavian outpost. It seemed an eternity since Denham had sent Sneum back into Denmark to photograph the Fanoe radar installations. In reality, it had been little more than a year, though much had changed.

If Denham had been forewarned of the circumstances surrounding Sneum’s release from Malmo, he certainly didn’t show it. Instead, he promised to arrange visas for Tommy and Arne, so that they could fly on the new British air service from Bromme airfield in Stockholm to Leuchars in Scotland. It might take a week or two, he warned, but he would make sure there was space on one of the planes. In the meantime, they would have to survive in Stockholm as best they could, because there was no money available to keep them comfortable.

Tommy’s solution to his latest predicament was typical: ‘I found a girl over there,’ he revealed later. ‘And I think Arne had friends in Stockholm.’

It was mid-June when the two men called the Legation and were finally told to head to Bromme airfield. There, they were directed towards a fifteen-seater Lockheed Hudson that was waiting on the tarmac. Christophersen was already sitting on the plane. However, the seating arrangements seemed to have been planned with this awkward scenario in mind: Helvard joined Christophersen at the front of the plane while Sneum was ushered to the back, and directed to a seat next to a man he thought he recognized. Swiftly, he traced the soft, handsome face to his visits to the British Legation in Copenhagen and the fast-moving days of April 1940; it was Ronald Turnbull. As they exchanged pleasantries, Sneum recalled that Turnbull had been a press attaché two years earlier in the Danish capital, and that they had sometimes attended the same parties. Turnbull was full of charm and fun, so Tommy couldn’t know that his status as an SIS agent meant he had been regarded by SOE’s field officer as the opposition over the previous nine months. He didn’t sense any relief in Turnbull that a dangerous rival had finally been removed from the Scandinavian stage.

Ronnie was leaving his beloved Thereza and their son Michael behind temporarily, while he took part in a series of meetings in London, many of them relating to the situation in Denmark. Sneum’s exit from the Danish stage had made Turnbull’s life simpler in many ways. The loose cannon, the thorn in Ronnie’s side, the SIS man who had tried to upset the Danish status quo with his risk-taking, had become a casualty of SOE’s recent rise to prominence.

The three-hour flight passed amicably enough. Tommy couldn’t deny that Turnbull was a witty, intelligent man whose company was easy to enjoy. He remembered: ‘I was having a nice conversation with Turnbull; he was very charming. We talked about the war, and, since we were both destined for London, we talked about England. He asked if I had been there before and I said that I had, the previous summer. He asked if I liked London, and I said I had enjoyed myself there.’

As Turnbull went his own way at Leuchars airfield, Tommy, Arne and Sigfred were met by military policemen. Tommy recalled: ‘We were arrested, driven to the nearest railway station and put on a night train bound for London, accompanied by a heavy police escort. I thought it was normal procedure, because the British wouldn’t want immigration officials to know that I was an agent. I didn’t think about trying to escape.’

The silent tension between Sneum and Christophersen was uglier than ever, and even their guards must have felt awkward.

Once in the capital, the Danish trio were transferred to a police car for what Tommy assumed would be a short journey across the West End. He felt sure their destination would be St. James’s Street, where he had met ‘Colonel Ramsden’ for the first time. Sneum hoped to have a long, serious talk with the man who had put him through