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But Chiewitz wasn’t smiling when he saw the state of Sneum. Quickly he arranged an X-ray in the hospital where he worked. It revealed a vertical crack down the length of Tommy’s coccyx.

‘Are you in pain?’ asked the doctor, his face a picture of bewilderment.

Uncharacteristically, Sneum admitted that he was.

‘You shouldn’t be able to walk at all,’ added Chiewitz’s colleague. ‘I can’t understand it.’

Tommy had marched fifteen kilometers fuelled by adrenalin and cognac when many men would simply have curled up in agony. Now he was told the fracture would mend of its own accord with rest. Chiewitz offered to arrange a bed in the hospital so that Sneum could recover from his ordeal.

‘That won’t be necessary,’ insisted Tommy. ‘Please just prescribe some painkillers. I’ll come back if I think I’m in trouble.’

Chiewitz persuaded him to wait long enough to see a trusted friend and colleague called Professor Hagedorn, a world-renowned expert on diabetes. When Hagedorn arrived, he collected a urine sample. Although Sneum cooperated, he didn’t see the point of this unrelated procedure and said so.

‘If ever you need to hide,’ Hagedorn explained, ‘you can come back into this hospital and we’ll be able to prove you have diabetes.’

‘One problem,’ replied Tommy. ‘I don’t have diabetes.’

Hagedorn took out some powdered pure grape sugar and dropped it into Sneum’s sample before stirring gently. ‘You do now,’ he said with a smile.

Chapter 20

A FRAGILE FOOTHOLD

TOMMY WAS MORE WORRIED about having to work with Christophersen than his own physical problems. He had hoped his partner’s attitude would harden once their mission had begun. Instead it appeared that the reverse was true. Christophersen had just confided to Sneum: ‘Now that we are back in Denmark I feel safe.’

Tommy was astonished at the remark. ‘When you’re with me, you’re not going to be safe,’ he warned. ‘That’s not the way I fight my war.’

He wanted to leave the timid Sigfred somewhere quiet for a few days, allowing him to take the first steps on his mission for the British alone. So he took a tram to the northern suburb of Soeborg, to visit Kaj Oxlund and his wife Tulle. They lived in a leafy boulevard called Noekkerosevej, situated far from the capital’s busy center. Tommy figured that even Christophersen could stay out of trouble there. The Oxlunds had rented a spacious first-floor flat in an elegant four-storey block, the last building on the right-hand side as Tommy walked down the street. He looked forward to the reunion.

When he opened his apartment door, Kaj Oxlund looked shocked to see his old friend standing there. ‘Sneum. I thought you were dead.’

Tommy smiled. ‘Can I come in, or has Tulle banned your friends?’ He saw Oxlund wince at the casual remark, and noticed that the apartment, though tidy, lacked the female touch.

Kaj must have read his mind. ‘Actually, Sneum, you might as well know. We’ve separated.’

Tommy was stunned. ‘After nine years? It’ll only be temporary, my friend. What happened?’

Oxlund explained that all of his trips to Sweden and throughout Denmark had meant he could never honestly explain his movements to his wife. They had drifted apart, and she seemed to think he was having an affair. Kaj had always said he was going away on business; but since the couple’s money worries had worsened, Tulle didn’t believe his alibis. She had left just a few weeks earlier, though Kaj had seen it coming for some time. Sadly, he had felt unable to do anything about it.

Tommy had never loved Else quite like Oxlund loved Tulle, but he too knew how much damage the war could do to a relationship. When you were intelligence-gathering, and you couldn’t tell your wife a thing about it, the excuses you concocted for your absences didn’t do much for mutual understanding.

Nevertheless, before the Nazi invasion, Kaj and Tulle had been as happy and settled as any couple Tommy had ever known. He felt sure those good times still had to count for something. ‘She’ll be back, Oxlund. You’ll see.’

‘No, she won’t,’ the older