He had restarted the engine and reached over to open Prince’s door. Prince hesitated; he wanted to ask Egon what he should do if there was a newspaper under the door. It was all very well being told to leave the building immediately, but where should he go? It was clear that Egon wasn’t going to hang around to give him a lift anywhere.

‘Please, you need to go in – now!’

When the trawler docks in Esbjerg, you will be in the hands of a Danish resistance cell we trust implicitly. Do as they say, don’t ask questions. When the time is right, they will get you to Copenhagen. When you arrive there, that resistance cell will have no more to do with you. They will have done their job. From that moment, you become Agent Laertes. Once you are there, you wait. Don’t be impatient. Agent Osric will find you. You may have to wait a week in the place you are taken to, maybe even longer. Agent Osric will identify themselves with the quote and you will respond with yours. I’m sure you won’t have forgotten them.

The apartment block was silent, as if abandoned. Prince stood for a while trying to get a sense of the building. As he climbed the stairs, he began to hear some muffled signs of life behind the apartment doors: a baby crying in one, a piano being played in another, voices on a radio…

There were four apartments on each floor, but the top floor had a sloping ceiling and just two doors. There was no newspaper under the door of number 30. He let himself in and locked it from the inside.

You may have to wait a week in the place you are taken to, maybe even longer.

Prince was reconciled to having to wait for at least a week. If it was going to be less than that, he assumed they would have said so. He’d decided he would not start to worry for ten days. He was like that: not setting his sights too high, avoiding being unrealistic.

It was a small apartment, but perfectly comfortable, even quite cosy. No one had said anything about whether he should disguise the fact that he was there, which he thought was odd. He took precautions nonetheless, walking around in his socks, keeping the curtains drawn as they had been when he entered the place, not making much noise. The kitchen was well stocked: plenty of tins of fish and meat, potatoes and a box of vegetables, biscuits, even a large cake in a tin with a picture of a castle on the lid. In the bedroom someone had laid out clothes more or less his size on the bed.