He knew he had failed in his responsibilities as a father and a husband. But he convinced himself that he had taken on new and more far-reaching responsibilities. And Emmy seemed crucial to the success of his mission, to his very survival. She was reassuring and fascinating, and now she was central to his world, one in which he could be double-crossed, tortured or shot at any time. He decided to live for the moment, and embraced the mutual attraction. Emmy had a ‘mature arrangement’ with her husband, who was unlikely to cause problems. Her daughter would almost certainly be less understanding, so Tommy and Mrs Valentin were careful to hide how close they had become from Birgit. Sneum needed all the comfort he could get, because he was about to make his mission a lot more dangerous. Daringly, he decided to return to the Hotel Cosmopolit in order to renew his acquaintance with some of the Abwehr officers based there: I had to keep up my contact with the Abwehr to get information for Britain.
