‘Go with these two officers. They’ll drop you somewhere safe. You know where to return to. Once there, stay put. Wait until I come, which may not be today. Understand?’

He was hurried down to the basement and into the back of an unmarked van. The van drove around for an hour, then it stopped, the rear doors opened and he was told to get out quick. Without so much as a goodbye, he was on his own, by the entrance to Enghaveparken. Ten minutes later, he was in the apartment off Carstensgade. Only when he locked the door and sank into the armchair did he appreciate the state he was in: drenched in sweat, his heart beating fast, mouth dry, and alternating feelings of dizziness and nausea. He was about to get up for some water when a wave of emotion hit him in a way he hadn’t experienced, not even when told of Jane and Grace’s deaths.

This was not so much shock, more profound fear and sadness. He thought of Henry and whether he’d ever see him again. He realised how close he’d come to falling into the hands of the Gestapo. The fact that he had apparently been betrayed only added to the emotion, and for a full hour he sat in the armchair and, for the first time since he was a child, sobbed his heart out.

At police headquarters on Polititorvet that afternoon, various careers came to rapid ends. When the Gestapo officer returned from his meal break and found Prince was missing, Jens was summoned. He explained, with an admirable degree of plausibility, how there had clearly been a misunderstanding. He had assumed that once he’d sorted the paperwork – which thankfully he had – he was to send the suspect direct to the Gestapo headquarters on Kampmannsgade.

‘So he’s there now?’

‘Yes – he must be.’

A delay while calls were made. There was, it transpired, no sign of the suspect at Kampmannsgade. What arrangements had been made to transfer the suspect?

He’d been sent down to prisoner transport, explained Jens. Prisoner transport, it transpired, had undergone a shift change. It would take some time to check exactly what had happened to the suspect. It was possible he might have been put on a transport to Roskilde, by mistake of course.

It was around this time that the Gestapo officer – a squat man with bad skin and a distinctive Swabian accent – began to realise how much he was to blame for the suspect going missing. He knew full well he should not have left the prisoner on his own. Going for a meal break, notwithstanding his considerable hunger, was tantamount to desertion.