Page 33 of Echoes of Betrayal

She heard a grumbling noise and then Pemberton replied, ‘Very well. We’re drowning out here. I thought you might come back sooner, seeing as your main post is as my translator.’

Lizzie took a deep breath. It was just normal stuff. He didn’t like it when she wasn’t at his beck and call. ‘Of course, sir. I’ll finish up here just as soon as I can and be with you shortly.’

The sound of footsteps and the bang of a door alerted Lizzie to his departure, and she sank back into the chair. What a day. She was so on edge; she was seeing enemies at every turn. Her fingers closed over the folded paper, and she spread it on the table to study, her heart thudding so hard it pounded in her ears.

There were several entries recording purchase transactions of Feingold, which Lizzie recognised as the standard term for bullion. It literally meant Fine Gold, and the dates ranged from spring to autumn 1941. Brunner & Cie had purchased from Reichsbank, Germany’s central bank, and recorded the value in Swiss francs. The gold weights were listed in kilograms against voucher numbers, and they ran down the whole page. This was not a one-off purchase, but an established arrangement between Brunner’s bank and the Germans. Lizzie studied each entry until one caught her eye. Schmuck und Zahngold. She read it again, translating it as dental gold and personal jewellery.

What? Her hands shook as she gripped the paper, reading the words repeatedly. It could mean only one thing. The Nazis were stealing gold from their murdered Jewish victims in the camps.

More Feingold transactions followed as if they were just routine gold bullion entries. Whoever recorded the transactions had a steady hand and was precise in their duties.

There was no way in hell Brunner & Cie didn’t know the significance of this horrifying entry in their sales ledger. The second she saw it, she knew what it meant, which meant Brunner and his partner did too.

No wonder the banker had got cold feet and reached out to her; now he saw the writing on the wall for the Reich. He was worried his time prospering from the depravities of the Nazi regime was drawing to a damning close, and he would be judged harshly for his part in enabling the laundering of Nazi-looted gold.

Lizzie sat at the table, shaken to the core as the realisation of what they were doing to the Jews washed over her. It was even worse than she could ever have imagined. It was worse than the reports she’d read at Baker Street. It was worse than what she and Jack had talked about in their discussions at the flat when they pondered the unfolding events of the war. It was far worse than anything her father had predicted in their gloomy talks about the atrocities the Nazis were committing.

When Tom returned, she told him Pemberton had come looking for her. ‘He’s an impatient sod, isn’t he?’ he whispered, and they both dissolved into laughter.

The tension in Lizzie’s body streamed from her eyes in uncontrolled tears. She couldn’t bear to tell him what she’d just discovered. That would make it too real.

Tom touched her shoulder. ‘Are you alright?’

Lizzie nodded and put on a brave face. ‘All this silent subterfuge is getting to me, that’s all. I’m used to seeing the enemy coming, but Bern is more unnerving.’ She pushed the horrors of dental gold into the recesses of her mind, knowing they would haunt her when she lay in bed, trying to sleep.

‘Did you get what you need?’ Tom asked, passing her a handkerchief with a flourish.

She accepted it and wiped her eyes. ‘Yes, thank you. I’ll send it to London in the next pouch.’ She’d already hidden the terrible paper in the picture's frame on the wall like last time, because stashing it in the safe would mean curious staff members might stumble upon it.

Tom said, ‘I’ll give you a tip to make things a little easier on you whilst you’re here.’

Lizzie looked at him. ‘All tips are welcome.’

‘Bern is a silent battleground of spies. We have the Americans, the Soviets, the Germans, and the Swiss to contend with. It would be stranger if Legation members weren’t followed. Take it in your stride and only lose them when you absolutely must. That way they think you’ve nothing to hide and will lose interest.’

‘That is a clever tip. So, rather than choosing a different café for lunch because I think I’m being watched, I should just lean into it?’

‘Exactly. That’s what us crusty old spy-types do who are hung out to dry in outposts like Bern, where not a lot happens on the surface, but everything happens underground.’

The rest of the afternoon passed quickly when she returned to her desk, where Pemberton had placed piles of documents awaiting her attention. He went out for a late afternoon meeting and left her to it. A copy of a newspaper lay discarded on a table, and Lizzie browsed through it when she took a break and drank a cup of tea.

Since she’d arrived, the newspapers had been full of reports of thousands of refugees arriving at the border, desperately seeking sanctuary in neutral Switzerland. Jewish families had fled Vichy France when the Germans occupied in November, the previous year. Some were said to be stateless, stripped of their citizenship by the Nuremberg Laws, and others who had already escaped to France were foreign-born and were now being forced to flee their French refuge.

Lizzie’s stomach churned as she read. Her thoughts turned to Liesel when she read about Jews arriving at the Swiss border. She had been right to risk her cover to get the Berlin-born Jewish girl and the family to safety in Bern. If she had left Liesel at the orphanage, she might still be in hiding as an Aryan girl under the care of Mother Clara. It would only have been a matter of time before someone noticed something that gave her Jewish heritage away, just as Lizzie had. As far as the mixed family was concerned, Lizzie doubted they wouldn’t have been caught. Their presence at the convent was too conspicuous, and they had escaped just before the latest round of sweeps that targeted mixed-marriage Jews.

Lizzie read on, feeling physically sick. The last permitted Jews from Germany and Austria, from mixed marriages, were also being hunted in final Nazi roundups, and Switzerland was their only hope to escape being deported to concentration camps. The report said most were turned away at the border, no matter how deadly their fate, and the Swiss federal government’s position in Bern remained the same. Only political refugees qualified, not victims of racial Nazi persecution and anti-Jewish statutes.

Anger welled in Lizzie, making her breathless. How could the Swiss fat cats turn away innocents who were marked for certain death? She knew from Tom that the occasional refugee slipped through if they were lucky to get a soft-hearted border official, but mostly they were doomed. Even those who got through were sent back if they were discovered hiding in the woods.

In her training footage at Baker Street, she learnt that in 1938 the Swiss had requested Germany mark Jewish passports with a large, red-coloured J for border efficiency, so they could easily identify them and refuse them entry. Switzerland may be officially neutral, but it was complicit. And after what she had discovered from the bank ledger excerpt, they were also complicit in funding the industrialised murder of Jews, with Jewish assets.

Lizzie shook her head. If she thought about it too much, it would drive her insane. How could people be so cruel? She would never understand it.

Checking her watch, she left early because something was weighing on her mind and she couldn’t shake it.

There was still no sign of Pemberton, so she put the translated documents on his desk. Scouring his office, nothing unusual caught her eye. If her wily boss was up to no good, he was clearly very careful about covering his tracks. Lizzie left the Legation and, instead of walking back to her apartment as usual, she took a tram from the Kirchenfeldbrücke, heading for a neighbourhood called Breitenrain. The tram network was efficient, but she enjoyed walking and had only travelled on it a few times. Bern was a compact city, but the destination that had hovered in the back of Lizzie’s mind for some time, was too far on foot.

Checking her watch again, she alighted from the tram and followed the directions she had committed to memory. She had been waiting for the right moment, and after reading the devastating article about Jewish refugees, she could resist the temptation no longer.