That morning he managed to slip out of the embassy and hurry to Jensen’s bicycle shop in the narrow alley off Pilestræde. In his haste he forgot to check whether there were any other customers there, but fortunately Jensen was on his own.

‘Hadn’t you better come into the workshop?’

‘Not now, I need to be quick. Dr Oppenheim, the man I met in April…’

‘What about him?’

‘I must speak to him urgently, later today if possible. Get a message to him and say you have a strained knee and need to see him as soon as possible. He’ll know what you mean.’

Jensen clearly sensed from von Buhler’s manner quite how urgent this was. ‘I’ll call him now. Go over there and pretend to be looking at bikes: the one with the tan saddle is just in.’

Von Buhler heard him make a brief call.

‘He can be here at five o’clock. Take this key and let yourself in at the back.’

It was an effort to get away from the embassy at that time. Von Buhler had been given the task of working on the transport of the arrested Jews to Poland: there seemed to be some problem he couldn’t quite understand about trains.

But such was the chaos at the embassy that he’d managed to photograph a number of documents, including one with the names and addresses of all the Jews in Copenhagen. He’d slipped the film into his pocket and made his way back to Pilestræde. He understood full well that if he was caught, he’d signed his own death warrant.

Dr Julius Oppenheim appeared to have aged considerably in the few months since they last met. He, von Buhler and Jensen huddled around a cluttered table in the middle of the workshop. The German diplomat carefully explained everything; by the time he had finished, Oppenheim was shaking. He took the film and put it in his inside jacket pocket. Was Herr von Buhler absolutely certain about all of this?

Yes.

Jensen placed an arm round the German’s shoulders, his voice quiet and determined. ‘I’ll make sure the resistance also knows right away.’

Copenhagen at the end of September 1943, where the lives of thousands and the fate of millions hung by a thread becoming more frayed by the day.

Ravensbrück concentration camp at the end of September 1943, where Hanne Jakobsen was about to enter her ninth month in captivity, her existence now even more perilous.

And a thousand miles to the south at the end of September 1943, where Richard Prince was a few weeks into his new mission and in another world, one quite unlike anything he’d experienced before, though no less menacing.

But his heart was elsewhere, torn between his son and the woman he loved.

Author’s Note