Page 12 of Echoes of Betrayal

Lizzie offered him a wry smile. ‘Apologies, sir. I didn’t mean to drop bombs on you; if anything, I’m far more concerned with stopping other bombs, if you get my drift.’

Pemberton cleared his throat. ‘I do indeed. The truth of the matter is we’re in the midst of a German military minefield that is so advanced I wouldn’t know where to begin to quash it.’

Lizzie was relieved Pemberton was cooperating and didn’t seem put out by her approaching him like this. Val had told her to assess him before revealing her real position, and when she discussed it with Jack, who had experience in diplomatic negotiations, he shed more light on the SOE strategy. ‘We never tell government officials in advance when we’re placing one of ours undercover, and there are a few reasons for it. One: this way you get to assess him and his operation without him knowing you are essentially spying on him, and two: if he is in some way corrupted or unreliable, you would then circumvent him altogether and not risk compromising yourself or the mission.’

Lizzie had accepted it as the usual SOE protocol, but now she realised just how much sense it made. If Pemberton had given signs of being a rotten apple, she would have picked up on something and not confided in him or given him any reason to suspect she was anything other than a translator and cipher clerk. Her cover for that additional role, which allowed her access to the cipher room at the Legation, was easily explained by her being a FANY. They needed all hands-on deck for experienced cipher clerks, and she had already established a working relationship with Tom Green, which gave her a direct line to Baker Street.

The SOE was really very smart and sometimes in the chaos back home and in the constant hustle within the Resistance networks they oversaw, she underestimated their operations.

There was a sharp tap on the door and Lizzie distanced herself.

‘Come in,’ her boss called in his authoritative tone.

His secretary appeared in the doorway. ‘Sorry to disturb you, sir. There’s an urgent telephone call for you from the Swiss Federal Council's trade department.’

Pemberton sighed again and his eyes moved from his secretary’s face back to Lizzie. ‘You’d better put him through then. These chaps tend to say everything is urgent, but it will be just the time I put one of them off that it will be. You’ll have to excuse me, Elizabeth.’

Lizzie would have liked to listen in, but she was excused and as she left the room all she heard him say was, ‘Nigel Pemberton, Commercial Attaché, speaking.’

No wonder he needed a translator, she thought as she returned to her desk. It was a wonder that these men in such influential positions didn’t attempt to speak the language of the country to which they were posted.

Lizzie checked the beautiful Swiss clock on the wall, and as if on cue, her stomach gurgled. It was time for lunch, and she had reached a natural break, so she grabbed her coat and hat and left the building.

Outside, the day had brightened considerably, and the heavy fog had lifted to reveal a watery sun glistening in the grey-tinged sky. She walked towards the bridge and marvelled, as she always did, at the steep drop to the river and the icy waters that swirled below, encircling the historic Old Town. She remembered from her training that the locals liked to swim in the warmer months, and she shivered involuntarily. She was a strong swimmer but the thought of braving the glacial river wasn’t a pleasant one, and she hoped that by the time the weather warmed enough for swimmers, she would have completed her mission and be home in London.

Once over the bridge, she entered the medieval cobblestoned alleyways and weaved through the labyrinth of pretty arcades, stone bridges and sculptured fountains. There was a fierce chill in the air, and she pulled her coat collar closer to her neck. On her first day, she had gone in search of something to eat when she was weary and disorientated, and had stumbled on a café that served delicious coffee and pastries, and had visited several times since.

Entering the café, she sat at a table by the window, and as she waited for the waitress to take her order, Jack came into her mind as he so often did, and she wondered how he was fairing with his Bletchley Park assignment. From experience, she knew they were a slippery lot over there in the secret codebreakers’ world. They naturally played their cards close to their chests, so she guessed he would have his work cut out.

‘Guten Tag, Ursula,’ Lizzie said when the friendly waitress reached her table.

They exchanged a few words, and Lizzie ordered and looked out of the window as she waited for her lunch. The food was one upside of being in Switzerland. At Baker Street they were fortunate to have more than most, but she was enjoying the Swiss cuisine and awaited the meal with relish.

It wasn’t long before Ursula returned, bearing a generous bowl of steaming soup and sliced bread and butter in a basket. Lizzie ate the soup and fresh bread hungrily, thinking she was blessed not to be in occupied France, having to survive on starvation rations. At this rate, by the time she returned to London, her mother would remark she had been fattened up, rather than her usual fussing about how she had wasted away.

Ursula cleared the dishes and passed Lizzie a folded copy of Der Bund that had been discarded on another table. ‘I’ll be back with your next course shortly.’

Lizzie flicked through the Swiss newspaper, but she’d barely started reading an article when a selection of cheese and a dish of rösti, the delicious potato dish, were laid before her. ‘This looks wonderful. Thank you so much,’ she said, pushing the newspaper aside.

Only when she’d finished eating and was sipping ersatz coffee, which was the least appetising part of the hearty meal, did she return to the newspaper.

Stalingrad was still front-page news, and the article analysed the German surrender. Lizzie had taken to reading the paper every day, and it wasn’t filled with German propaganda like the papers she usually read on her missions. Indeed, it had none of the British spin of the press back home either. Lizzie felt encouraged by the tone of the article, which was more that of an observer watching the direction of the war slowly pivot.

This conflict seemed to have been going on forever, but the tide was turning, and she could see victory within reach.

CHAPTER 11

Elizabeth Gale’s days were largely uneventful, and so far, she had nothing substantial to report to Baker Street, and hadn’t asked Tom Green if she could use his radio. There was no information to relay, even though she would have liked to send a message to Jack for no other reason than that she missed him. She missed everything about him, actually—the way he gently woke her in the morning and brought her tea in bed, and the way he talked to her like she was the centre of his world. He often said she was the centre of his world, and he was hers, which made it even more difficult when they were torn apart by the demands of the job.

Lizzie worked long hours at the Legation. There was much to do to fulfil her legitimate role as translator to Nigel Pemberton, and on top of that she was on high alert for anything unusual with the twenty members of staff who flapped about like busy birds in the diplomatic building. Elizabeth Gale was gradually becoming recognised in the Bern office, and she was doing her best to forge new relationships and get the lay of the land. It was an entirely different mission than she’d ever been sent on before.

Work passed the time, and she didn’t want her nights in the quiet apartment in the clouds on the residential street in Kirchenfeld to feel any longer than they already did. As she lay there, trying to fall asleep in her comfortable bed in the warm bedroom, she thought fondly of Hannah, her sister-in-arms in the Resistance, and how they had been crammed into two tiny single beds in a Berlin attic. The contrast with this mission was dramatic, but sleeping in the sky was the same.

The elegant tiled ceramic stove they called a Kachelofen in the living room, warmed the whole place and the thick walls retained heat far better than in London or Berlin, so her bedroom was toastier than any she’d slept in since the start of the war.

Switzerland had a taste of luxury in comparison with the rest of Europe, as if the hardships of war couldn’t touch this hallowed, neutral country. Beneath the surface, Lizzie knew it was a quite different scenario which so far, she only sensed but could not put her finger on. She must step things up to the next level if she were to identify tangible proof of the Swiss-Nazi collaboration, but so far conditions at the Legation and in her explorations beyond had presented no opportunities to uncover the intelligence she needed.

The Legation ran smoothly, and, in some ways, when she worked at her desk; she felt as though she had fallen into another world entirely, where there was no war. But for the war, she would probably be married in Jersey by now and would never have met Jack or been recruited by the SOE and all the risks it entailed.