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Tommy finished paying and left before she could say anything. However, he realized that he must now assume he had been compromised. Making his way back to Emmy’s with the flowers, he took several detours to ensure he wasn’t being followed. All the time, he was kicking himself for his carelessness. His life would now be in even more danger than before, and all for the sake of flowers that would fade and die within days.

As they ate their Christmas meal and tried to be cheerful, Sneum’s mind was elsewhere, uncharacteristic behavior when he was in the company of women. But by the end of the meal, a traditional Danish spread of cold meats and fish, there had been more than enough awkward silence, so he tried belatedly to lighten the atmosphere.

‘Are you doing anything interesting between now and New Year’s Eve, Emmy?’ he asked.

‘Yes, as a matter of fact: I’m going out with a number of high-ranking German officers. One of them,’ she added pointedly, ‘I intend to charm rather more than the others.’

Though she didn’t seem to want to elaborate in front of Birgit, it was clear to Sneum from Emmy’s expression that she was talking about the Abwehr officer who had claimed the war might be cut short by German scientists.

On the night of 27 December, SOE agents Bruhn and Hammer jumped out of a British plane at Torpeskou, near Haslev, sixty-five kilometers south of Copenhagen. These must have been terrifying moments for the brilliant Dr Bruhn as he hurtled through the darkness and realized that his parachute hadn’t opened. He would never see his British wife, Dr Anne Connan, again. Some claimed later that he had forgotten to attach his parachute to the static line. Others blamed a faulty clip mechanism, and suggested that an important life had been wasted for want of a sturdy ‘safety pin.’

Whatever the truth, as Bruhn’s body smashed into the ground, Hammer knew nothing of the doctor’s fate. A tough seaman who had learned his skills on ships’ radios, Hammer looked for his partner but failed to find him. After an hour, he had no choice but to leave the drop-zone, having only partially concealed his own parachute. As he trudged away, he might have wondered why Bruhn had been assigned the suitcase that carried the radio transmitter. Already his mission looked in jeopardy. But soon events would take an even worse turn, with consequences not just for Hammer but for the two British agents who had been in Denmark since September.

The following morning a German patrol found Bruhn’s crushed body, along with the incriminating transmitter. Searching the area, they uncovered a second parachute and realized that one man was still at large. An order was promptly issued to all troops: ‘The first parachute drop of British agents on Danish soil took place during the night of 27/8 December near Koege. One of the agents is dead, but the other succeeded in escaping. As further parachute drops are to be expected, all troops are advised to be especially vigilant.’

Of course, the Germans had never known about the first parachute drop which had delivered Sneum and Christophersen into Denmark, but that was of little consolation to Tommy now, as the manhunt for British agents reached fever pitch. He presumed that the searches were due to the fact that he had been recognized in the florist’s shop on Christmas Eve.

So now, of four agents parachuted into Denmark, one was dead, another (Hammer) was bewildered and powerless to transmit as he reached the sanctuary of relatives in Copenhagen, and a third (Christophersen) was on the run and losing his nerve. Meanwhile, Sneum wasn’t aware that his predicament had been worsened by the intense competition between the two British intelligence agencies. All he knew was that he was now in deep trouble and would have to use all his cunning to evade capture.

On New Year’s Day, Emmy Valentin called into Sneum’s flat. She pulled out a napkin containing some crude sketches and explained that she had persuaded her Abwehr officer, after several bottles of wine, to draw some U-boat bays