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Leslie Andrews controlled himself long enough to call his son Gordon, then ordered Sneum’s instant removal from his property. Suddenly SIS and London’s Free Danish leader had a crisis on their hands.

Chapter 46

WHEN LIFE IS TOO SHORT

SINCE JOHN CHRISTMAS MOELLER had exerted so much pressure to have Sneum released from Brixton Prison, he now bore much of the responsibility for his fellow countryman’s future. Therefore, Sneum was quickly moved to London and housed in Christmas Moeller’s basement flat. He was even given a job in the politician’s office, which mainly consisted of translating documents. His opinion was sometimes sought on the quality of various snippets of intelligence which found their way through from Denmark. But Sneum still felt like a spectator, cheated of his place at the center of the action.

By night, however, he was anything but a passive observer as he made up for lost time by trying to bed as many women as possible. ‘In those days, it felt like I only had to take a woman by the hand and she would go straight to bed with me,’ he admitted with a chuckle. ‘I even had two women at the same time, but I didn’t like it when they started giving each other attention when they should have been giving it all to me.’ He brought many of his conquests back to his new home, and it seemed as though his appetite was insatiable. ‘I found I could stay up for three nights and four days without sleeping,’ he claimed.

His hosts soon found it hard to turn a blind eye to his playboy lifestyle, and Christmas Moeller’s wife, Gertrud, finally lost patience and insisted that Sneum be confronted about his behavior. The politician called his guest into the main house and came straight to the point: ‘You run around with too many girls, Sneum. Sooner or later it’s going to get you into serious trouble.’

‘I’m in trouble already,’ joked Tommy. ‘Some of them can be terribly jealous and suspicious.’

Gertrud insisted that it was no laughing matter. ‘We felt sorry for you when you were in prison,’ she explained. ‘We can understand that you want to enjoy yourself after being locked up all that time. But you have a wife in Denmark and you’re leading a life of debauchery here, Tommy. There’s no other way of putting it. You should love your wife.’

‘What’s the point of loving a woman in Denmark when I’m in England?’ asked Tommy with unanswerable logic.

But Christmas Moeller backed his wife: ‘It’s not acceptable, Sneum. Remember, this is our household and we make the rules, even for the cellar flat. No more women—agreed?’

Sneum was too stubborn to have the terms of his private life dictated to him. ‘How can I agree to something like that?’ he asked in desperation.

Gertrud was prepared for just such a response. ‘Then my husband and I have no alternative but to tell you that you are no longer welcome to stay here.’

John Christmas Moeller clearly regretted that it had come to this. ‘From now on you’ll have to live with my secretary, Peter Knauer. And I should warn you that Peter’s wife had a strict upbringing in Australia, and she won’t put up with any of your nonsense. Besides, you won’t have your own flat any more, just a room. Since you have abused your newfound freedom, you will now have less of it.’

Sneum recalled: ‘I carried on having affairs but Christmas was right—Mrs Knauer didn’t like it.’ For a week or two, he would fall deeply in love with a woman, before he reminded himself that he was essentially in love with all women. He remembered: ‘I fell in love with a doctor from Kensington Hospital. Her mother was English, her father from Senegal. Her name was Audrey and she was lovely. In fact she was the most beautiful girl you could ever imagine. She wasn’t very sexual at the start but I soon made her feel sexy.’

At the time, Sneum was socializing with another member of the Danish resistance who had managed to escape, Ole Killerich. Although he was older than Tommy, they had much in common. ‘He had gone to live with Emmy Valentin after I had left for England, and he had shagged her before coming to London,’ revealed