Prince nodded and patted his backpack.

‘Remember it will be very cold. I’d better find you a couple more blankets.’

He said he’d appreciate that. It was already five o’clock in the afternoon and the ferry wasn’t due to sail from Gedser until nine the following morning. That meant sixteen hours in a windowless storage room, no more than three foot by seven, with much of the room taken up by piles of lifejackets and a large coil of foul-smelling rope. They were on the lowest deck, and the noise of the engine and the pumps reverberated around him.

‘I’ll get you the blankets and then I’ll lock the door. I’ll unlock it when we’re in Warnmünde.’

‘When will that be?’

Peder shrugged. He was the chief engineer on the ferry and a contact of someone recommended by someone Hanne knew. A friend of a friend of a friend: it all felt a bit tenuous, but Peder seemed pleasant enough and Prince had no alternative but to trust him.

‘Depends on whether we get away from here on time, what the conditions are like on the crossing and how long the Germans take to search the boat in Warnmünde. Sometimes they have two or three men taking less than half an hour; other times it can take a lot longer and be quite thorough. It’s a three-hour crossing, so if all goes well you could be off the boat by one o’clock, but it may be later.’

Peder brought the extra blankets and then locked the door. He assured Prince there’d be no one on the boat overnight other than a nightwatchman on the top deck. He had also brought a small lamp but told him to use it sparingly. It gave Prince enough light to arrange some of the lifejackets into a bed of sorts. He’d hesitate to describe it as comfortable, but with the blankets wrapped around him it was not quite as bleak as it could have been.

As for his mood, though, that could not have been bleaker. He’d had every reason to expect he’d be back in England by now. He’d hoped he’d be spending Christmas with his son, but now it was the first Monday in January and he was heading into the German Reich once again.

It was only when he and Otto were in the taxi from Kastrup airport to Copenhagen after their flight from Berlin that Prince finally felt he could relax. He realised he was still a British agent in Nazi-occupied Denmark, with all that entailed, but the end of his mission was in sight. Within days he’d be back in England, with his son. Despite signs everywhere of the German occupation, Copenhagen felt considerably less menacing than Berlin.