Page 34 of Echoes of Betrayal

The local primary school was in the same neighbourhood where Hildegard’s mother lived. Liesel and her new family had stayed with her until they found their own little home a few streets away. Lizzie had hoped they might have been able to escape Europe and get to America, but she knew it was close to impossible to get a visa.

Gazing around, Lizzie noted it was a neat but unremarkable residential neighbourhood, and she could think of no more suitable haven for Liesel. After what she had been through by the age of seven, unremarkable would be the best they could hope for. Turning the corner, the school was across the road just as she’d expected. The bell rang, and children streamed into the playground as Lizzie’s eyes welled up. The children didn’t know how fortunate they were to be in Switzerland, safe from Hitler’s bombing campaigns that had killed so many.

Hovering on the opposite side of the road, she watched for a glimpse of Liesel. It was difficult to make out the faces of the children as they skipped and dashed around the playground, waiting for a parent to collect them.

Lizzie’s heart seemed to grind to a painful halt. There she was. Dear Liesel was chatting to another girl as they walked down the path to the school gate. That was her new sister, Rosa, and Lizzie was overjoyed to see how normal they looked together.

Lizzie’s eyes flooded as if someone had turned on a tap, and she searched for a handkerchief in her handbag to wipe her face. Some spy.

When she looked up again, Miriam Kaufmann had arrived, and the two little girls were each holding one of her hands and chattering at the same time. The forger in Berlin had created Miriam a new identity as Maria Müller, so she wouldn’t be suspected of being Jewish in Bern. As they neared the opposite side of the narrow street, Lizzie caught snatches of Liesel’s sweet piping voice but couldn’t make out her words. She could see her expression, and the little girl was happy to be with her mother and sister. It didn’t take a spy to work that out.

Lizzie stood, rooted to the spot, her hands buried in her coat pockets as she watched them walk along the street, weaving between other parents and children. Her emotions were ablaze as she tried to keep her feelings for Liesel under control. She longed to rush across the road and scoop her up in her arms and tell her how proud she was of her.

Miriam Kaufmann raised her head, and Lizzie saw recognition strike as she paused; the two little girls still chattering like excited children do after a long school day. She hesitated for a few seconds, and then Rosa pulled her hand and urged her to hurry. ‘Come along, mother, we want to get home so we can play out before it grows dark.’

Their eyes locked briefly, and then the spell was broken as Lizzie turned her head. She couldn’t endanger them and risk Liesel recognising her because of her own selfish desires. Standing there, she watched the little girl turn the corner and disappear from her life once again. Her heart hurt, but she was relieved that they were all safe.

At least for now.

CHAPTER 31

Jack sat down opposite Val. Instead of launching immediately into why he had come, he made small talk and saw Val relax her defences slightly. There was no point in taking his frustration out on her. She was as good a boss as he could ever wish for, and he knew she always did what she thought was best for everyone. Jack drew on his cigarette and asked if he could get her some tea.

Val narrowed her eyes. ‘Buttering me up, are you, Captain?’ she teased.

Jack laughed. ‘Not at all. I could do with a cuppa after my journey and thought you might like one too.’

‘Very well, then,’ she said. ‘I’ll finish what I’m doing and then we can discuss whatever it is you clearly have on your mind.’

Jack went to the canteen, and Stella, the friendly tea lady, served him. ‘Good to see you, sir. It’s been a while. I hope you and your lovely fiancée are keeping well.’

Jack assured her they were fine but busy on different postings. If anyone in the building had been happy to hear of their engagement, it was Stella, with whom Lizzie had a special bond. They had sheltered together in the underground station during one of the worst bombing raids of the Blitz, and Stella always asked after Lizzie.

Jack walked back to Val’s office with a tray of tea and biscuits. Val was a good sort, and she responded better to charm than to sulking. There was no doubt a good reason she didn’t want to send him to check on The Lavender Network, and she would tell him what it was. The greater the responsibility, the bigger the picture, and Val would know more than he about what was happening in Toulouse, even if she didn’t say she did. That a woman of her operational authority held a lower rank than his was a strange irony.

The senior intelligence officer who took care of her French Section agents, or F Section, as though they were her own family, was a woman of mystery. Jack still knew barely anything about her background, other than she had started in Military Intelligence as a secretary long before the war, and that was how she came to recruit him at Oxford University.

In the early days, he had asked her how she came to work there, intrigued at having a woman for a boss, but she had told him in her good-humoured way that it was she who asked the questions, not he. Val had been there for his graduation, and it was she who offered him a career in Military Intelligence, after he acted as her unofficial eyes and ears on the ground in his years at Oxford. She’d seen the potential in him from the very beginning, and he trusted her with his life.

They sipped their tea and crunched on the biscuits for a few moments before Val fixed her gaze on him. ‘Alright, out with it, King.’

Jack ran his fingers through his dark, floppy hair. ‘Any word on Hannah yet?’

Val shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not. There’s chatter on various channels, though.’

Jack sucked in his breath, his chest tightening. ‘Oh yes. Saying what?’

‘Young men are evading compulsory labour and joining the ranks of the Maquis in the south. The Milice, the newly formed branch of the French police, is hunting them down.’

‘I see,’ Jack said. He knew about the ruling Vichy France had pushed through only months before German troops occupied the south the previous year. He and Val had hoped it had been relegated once the Vichy regime lost what power it had before the full occupation. ‘Is Lev a likely target for labour enforcement?’

Val finished her tea before setting her mug down. ‘I’d say he’s more of a target if they discover he’s Jewish. They seem to be rounding up men in their early twenties, so he may be safe in that respect, for now at least.’

‘Same for Hannah and the other Jews in the network, then.’

Val said, ‘If anyone can escape the clutches of the Nazis, it’s Hannah and Lev. They have developed into a formidable team.’

Jack nodded. ‘What do you think of The Lavender Network as a whole in this new order of things in the south?