It was either very late at night or very early in the morning, depending on how you looked at it. Peter was leaning on the front fender of the car while Bernie napped behind the wheel. They had hidden the car in a copse of trees in the Stockholm suburb of Stora Essingen. From where he was standing, Faye could see Karl-Heinz’s DKW parked in front of an elegant yellow brick house with a red-tiled roof. In spite of the hour, there was a light on in the first-floor window.
A German staff car arrived and pulled in behind the DKW. A messenger got out and went to the door, knocking three times. He waited silently until Karl-Heinz appeared at the door in a dressing gown. Karl-Heinz took the package from the messenger and then stepped back inside, before turning off the light.
Peter watched the staff car pull away. A moment later, a light came on in a window on the second floor. A shadow passed in front of the light and then disappeared. It was time to go home, Peter thought as he approached the driver’s window, shaking Bernie awake.
“Let’s go,” Peter said.
“Righto, guv,” Bernie groaned.
Peter went around the car and opened the passenger door as Bernie started the engine.
The Consular Services office at the British Legation was divided into a public area with a counter where Swedish citizens and foreign tourists could fill out visa applications to visit Britain or British citizens could apply for a passport and a private area where the applications were filed. A young man named Sigge was talking to a woman at the front desk, but otherwise, there were few clients. With the war at its apogee, Britain was not a particularly attractive tourist destination.
“That’s my desk you are sitting at,” Bridget Potter said indignantly as she entered the office.
Peter looked up, startled. The young woman standing before him was dark-haired and tanned, her colouring nicely set off by the summer dress she wore. Peter collected his wits and got to his feet.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I was typing a report.”
“I can see that, but you’re sitting at my desk.”
“You must be Miss Potter?”
“And you must be the new bloke?”
“Miss Potter. I’m Peter Faye, the new bloke, as you put it.”
“So you are.”
Peter found himself staring at her. She was pretty, in an unconventional way, quite tall, and her belted summer dress accentuated her slim figure. She appeared to be in her late twenties. Even with little or no makeup, Peter thought she looked very glamorous for such a humdrum job.
“I still need my desk,” she said with a smile.
“Oh, of course,” Peter flushed with embarrassment.
He hastily gathered his files and carried them to a nearby table. Bridget took a key from her handbag and used it to open her desk drawer.
“So you started work last week, Mr Faye?”
“Yes, Mallet gave me the tour. Sigge has been helping me with the applications.”
“Good.”
Peter thought that Bridget must be very special because his boss, Major Keith Linwood at MI6, had recommended her. He said her service record was exceptional, which was unusual for Keith, a man of few words. Furthermore, Peter’s predecessor had thought highly of her too. Maybe it was her good looks that had swayed the man, thought Peter. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“How was your holiday, Miss Potter?”
“Wonderful. I went to Öland with friends. It’s an island south of here with lovely beaches.”
“I heard that the Swedish military mined the southern approaches of Öland,” Peter said as he remembered seeing on the map the long finger of an island stretching from south to north along the east coast.
“The Swedish navy escorts merchant ships through the Kalmar sound between the island and the mainland on their way to Stockholm,” Bridget said. “While I was on holiday, I saw a German troop transport ship going through the sound. They said it was on its way to Finland.”
”That’s very interesting.”
“The Swedish government is still very pro-German.”
“Haven’t they stopped all German troop transits on Swedish railways?”
“Yes, they have,” Bridget said. “It was about time. We put pressure on the government here with the help of the Americans. By the way, how are you finding Stockholm?”
“Wonderful, I love the city.”
“You look tired, Mr Faye. Have they got you working long hours already?”
“I was out with Bernie Dixon last night. He was showing me around town.”
“I like Bernie. He’s married to a very nice Swedish woman named Sabrina and nobody knows Stockholm like Bernie. He’s been here forever.”
“He’s a nice chap,” Peter said. “It’s very quiet at the moment, Miss Potter. Is it always like this?”
“Yes, it has been quiet for months. Not much to do, I’m afraid.”
Bridget busied herself at her desk for a moment, then looked up.
“So how is K?” she asked.
“K is out and about, Miss Potter, drinking and carousing, as far as I can see.”
“My instructions from the major are to provide you with support when necessary, same as Bernie. Here in the office, however, you are my assistant, so we better install you at that desk in the corner, out of sight of the public.”
“That would be fine, Miss Potter.”
“I didn’t mean to bark at you earlier.”
“Of course, no offence taken.”
“Would you like a real cup of coffee, Mr Faye?”
“Yes, I would.”
“The Swedes get the best of everything,” Bridget said. “Nothing like the coffee substitutes back in England. Did you meet with R?”
“Not yet. Bernie briefed me. I am doing my first pickup during the lunch hour.”
“You will like Stockholm. It is a wonderful place in the summer with the canals and the restaurants. The Germans aren’t so arrogant now that we are starting to win the war.”
Bridget busied herself making coffee in the corner.
“Sugar and cream?”
“Black, please.”
“Have you had the chance to meet with Michael Tennant? He’s our press attaché.”
“Tennant, yes. He’s very helpful and a goldmine of information.”
“Well, then. I will let you get back to your work. The coffee won’t be long.”
Bridget went to her desk and started to organize her inbox as her thoughts went to her new employee. She knew that Peter was single from his file, but she wondered why a handsome man like him wasn’t married.
In a tiny office off the main floor of the Abwehr station on Nybrogatan Street, Kriminaldirektor Golcher looked up to see his assistant Oberleutnant Kemper enter the room. Abwehr men wore off-the-rack suits and ties in neutral Sweden and kept a low profile. Kemper sat down quickly and whispered in a low voice to his boss.
“They are building a case, sir.”
“You talked to our man?” Golcher asked.
“Yes, it comes from the very top. The Gestapo has instructions to keep an eye on Dr Kramer. The reports go directly to the boss in Berlin, Heinrich Müller.”
Golcher looked worried.
“Is an arrest imminent?” Golcher asked.
“Doesn’t seem to be. They are just watching him, sir.”
“Well, they are also watching the masseur Felix Kersten and he is Himmler’s physical therapist, so it may be nothing.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What else did he say?”
“‘Egmont’, sir.”
“‘Egmont’? What is this ‘Egmont’?”
“I don’t know. I thought you might know, sir.”
“Thank you, Herr Kemper,” Golcher said as his assistant left the room. He leaned back in his chair, puzzled. What the hell was ‘Egmont’ and why the surveillance on Dr Kramer?
Kramer was his star agent and Golcher owed his plum position in Stockholm to the quality of Kramer’s work. He worked in the press office of the German Legation and did not associate with Abwehr officers. Kramer’s reports to Admiral Canaris in Berlin were a thing of legend; even the Führer mentioned them from time to time.