The Hornet's Sting_ The Amazing Untold Story of World War II Spy Thomas Sneum - Mark Ryan [82]
Tommy didn’t know what to say, and they shared some awkward moments until the tram reached the next stop. ‘Then I told her, “You’d better come with me,” and we went to a restaurant.’
Sneum was terrified that his presence in Denmark would now become common knowledge, only a few weeks into his mission. He sat his wife down and looked her in the eye. ‘If you talk about this to anyone, you’ll be interrogated by the Germans, and that will mean instant death for me,’ he said.
Else demanded to know where he was living, but Tommy refused to tell her. Nevertheless, she was determined to see him again, and was clearly prepared to overlook the fact that her husband had lied about sailing to America in search of work.
‘We can’t see each other,’ said Tommy.
A defiant Else reminded him that he had a six-month-old daughter, who was at her sister’s house at that very moment. She insisted that he come to see Marianne immediately. Tommy was convinced that Else would cause even more of a scene if he didn’t comply, so, within an hour, he was playing with his baby daughter while Else repeatedly swore her sister to secrecy.
When Marianne finally fell asleep, Tommy took Else into another room, and for a while Mr and Mrs Sneum became man and wife again. After so many months of confusion, the passionate Else must have felt that her old life was returning. She was mistaken.
‘We can’t make a habit of this,’ Sneum said as they lay together. ‘It’s too dangerous.’
His wife suggested that once in a while would be better than never, so they arranged to meet on the first Monday of each month near the parliament building, outside Christiansborg Castle. Tommy was relieved to have averted a crisis. Later he confirmed: ‘We met like that a couple of times, and we found the means to go to bed together. After that I didn’t go any more.’
When the police hammered on the door of Carl Jensen’s third-floor flat at 2 Harald Jensensgade, it was Else Sneum they wanted to question.
‘We are looking for your husband,’ they explained. ‘Is he back in Copenhagen?’
The quick-thinking Else promptly produced the evidence which might throw the police off her husband’s trail, just as it had deceived her for so long. ‘This was the last contact I had with him. I received it about three months ago. He is in America.’
The detectives examined the letter. The postmark said 5 July but, intriguingly, the correspondence had been sent from Copenhagen. And, although Sneum had written that he was going to the United States to look for work, there was no hard evidence to suggest he had actually done so.
‘Do you think your son-in-law crossed the Atlantic?’ The question was directed at Mr Jensen, who said he assumed that was exactly what had happened.
It wasn’t clear precisely what had prompted the detectives’ visit. Had Else’s sister been indiscreet after Tommy’s impromptu visit, or was the timing merely a coincidence? Either way, Else must have feared for her husband’s safety that day.
Chapter 24
BROTHERS IN ARMS
ONE EVENING TOWARDS the end of October, Emmy kept a discreet vigil for Tommy’s return to St. Annaegade and called him straight into her ground-floor flat. She explained that she had been seeking the company of some of her husband’s German-officer friends, as Tommy had suggested. Some of them were administrators, others worked in intelligence. When she showed her face in the right hotels, they assumed she was lonely after her separation from her husband, and would invite her out to dinner, sometimes three or four of them together. Emmy would tell