The Hornet's Sting_ The Amazing Untold Story of World War II Spy Thomas Sneum - Mark Ryan [97]
He made certain he wasn’t being followed before heading to the safety of Kaj Oxlund’s apartment in Noekkerosevej. There Tommy uprooted the floorboards, took out the old radio, and installed the new Duus Hansen model in the same hiding place. Within an hour, he had deposited the most cumbersome piece of a British spy’s kit in locker number thirteen at Copenhagen’s central railway station and been given a written receipt in return. Under the Danish system, the stationmaster retained the key to the locker. So if he ever wanted the primitive radio back, Tommy would need to show the receipt.
When the detectives finally broke into the fifth-floor flat at 15 St. Annaegade, they were disappointed to find it almost entirely cleared of possessions. What Esbensen and his colleagues discovered on the table intrigued them, though, especially when they received the results of the tests that were subsequently conducted in a police laboratory. The mystery man, who had so nearly been caught, had apparently made a careless mistake in his rush to escape, one they had reason to believe might lead to his positive identification in time. The glasses he had left behind were most unusual: one of the lenses corrected a short-sighted eye, the other a long-sighted eye. A police doctor confirmed that the condition existed in only a tiny percentage of the population. The authorities therefore started the hunt for a man whose peculiar eye problems would ultimately betray his identity, or at the very least link him to the apartment. ‘Carelessly’ leaving behind the specially prepared spectacles had worked just as Sneum, who had perfect vision, had intended.
Chapter 29
BOHR’S BOMBSHELL
TOMMY WAS ON THE RUN and by now he had come to the conclusion that the British were unlikely to help him. He hadn’t heard a word from Rabagliati or anyone else in London since landing in Denmark, so he would have to rely on his own contacts, as usual. Though he needed somewhere to hide, even now he didn’t want to be too far from the action in Copenhagen. Rather than try to return to Britain, his aim was to weather the storm in the Danish capital and then continue with his mission.
There wasn’t much room at Kaj Oxlund’s first-floor flat, because Christophersen had returned as ordered. Besides, it seemed more sensible to leave Kaj to keep Sigfred under close observation. After giving the matter some thought, Sneum decided to take up a long-standing offer of accommodation in the basement of a house belonging to Professor Hagedorn, who was attempting to verify the information about Germany’s super-bomb with his friend Chiewitz. There was ample space in the basement to hide Duus Hansen’s radio apparatus; and the room was self-contained, so Tommy could have his own set of keys and move about freely. Hagedorn would simply deny all knowledge of Tommy’s presence if the latter were caught. Though such a claim would certainly be doubted, it would be the professor’s best hope of avoiding the same fate as a captured spy.
As Sneum reorganized his life, so did his estranged wife Else. The spell as a shop assistant in Copenhagen’s city center had provided a distraction from her husband’s latest disappearance. Unfortunately, with the Christmas rush over and the demand for staff reduced, she had been laid off by the Fonnesbech store. Once again she was faced with the frustrations of life as a single parent. But once again her family came to the rescue and agreed to finance a career move that might soon hand her back her precious independence.
She enrolled for a course at Miss A. Wiesel, a top secretarial college in Copenhagen. Between 10.00 a.m. and 1.00 p.m. each weekday, she honed her typing, stenography and book-keeping skills. The rest of the time she was happy to spend with