Chapter 27
Lizzie looked up from the document she was translating and noticed Pemberton welcoming another official into his office.
In the time she’d been with him, she’d quickly concluded that he spent a large proportion of his time sweet-talking Swiss officials.
She assumed that must be the way of things with diplomats posted overseas, but even so, something didn’t sit quite right with her about the way he pandered to the bigwigs.
Resuming her work, she pushed the unpleasant thoughts from her mind.
She had bigger fish to fry in Switzerland, and Pemberton was the least of her problems. As long as he didn’t keep her under too tight a rein, which he didn’t, presumably because he was too busy pursuing his own interests without her there to cramp his style, she was free to do as she wished if she completed her work.
Lizzie was more concerned with Brunner’s state of mind and whether he intended to leave her another package.
Did he imagine that what he had passed to her was enough to clear his bank of colluding with the Nazis?
The difficulty was that she couldn’t speak to him to discover his intentions.
She felt adrift as she waited for more from him, not knowing if what he would give her was enough to fulfil her mission or whether she should risk searching for another source.
Jack hadn’t exaggerated when he warned her that this kind of work was like walking on eggshells in treacle-coated boots.
Since the day she was almost certain she had been followed to her apartment with the secret package on her, she’d taken greater precautions, and wherever she went, she circled back and paused multiple times.
There was a man who kept popping up in her vicinity, and she wondered if it was he who had followed her that night.
Whenever she noticed him, he seemed to have a perfectly satisfactory motive for doing whatever he was doing, such as queuing to buy a newspaper or entering a shop.
One lunchtime he was even in her café before she arrived, so she could hardly accuse him of following her.
If he was a spy, and running into him wasn’t pure coincidence in a city as compact as Bern, he was a clever one.
The man she suspected of watching her and Brunner in the café hadn’t resurfaced since, and she thought she might have imagined it.
The close shave with someone potentially following her when she collected the package had spooked her, and if Brunner left another dead drop in the wall, as she hoped he would, she planned to take it straight to the Legation.
On reflection, going to her apartment had been a poor choice, as she’d had to smuggle it into work and hide it there the following day.
If she had left it in her apartment, someone could break in and steal it, whereas the Legation had much tighter security and was off-limits.
She doubted even Swiss counterintelligence would dare breach their territory, although they were probably in there enough at Pemberton’s invitation.
Nowhere was safe, but the Legation was as close as it got.
Brunner hadn’t left another package for her yet, and she had been back to the terrace several times in the past week and scoured the gaps in the wall.
Tom appeared and muttered over her shoulder. ‘The diplomatic pouch is being collected sometime this afternoon.’
Lizzie nodded and then they switched immediately to talking about upcoming events on the Legation calendar. ‘You are quite the social butterfly,’ she teased Tom.
‘That’s the nature of my communications role, I’m afraid. If one doesn’t have the stomach for endless social engagements, they’re in the wrong line of work.’
Lizzie glanced at her watch and saw it was past noon. She waited until Tom had moved on and Pemberton was in his office with his door closed before rising from her desk and walking to the cipher room.
She knocked, and Tom beckoned her inside. ‘Ah, good, there you are. They could come at any time, so we’re down to the wire on the last additions to the pouch. You said you had something you wanted to send to London?’
Lizzie nodded. ‘Yes, that’s correct. I need to retrieve it.’
Tom looked at her expectantly until what she meant dawned on him. He raised one eyebrow. ‘Oh, I see. Alright, well I must nip to the gentleman’s room. I shall be back in a few minutes to collect whatever it is you wish to include.’
Lizzie waited for the door to close and locked it for good measure before crossing to the painting on the wall by the window.
In the space of just a few weeks, she noticed the pretty garden had transformed from a snowy scene to one of bright blossoming buds.
She raised her hands, holding the painting in place with one and pulling it slightly off the wall with the other.
Her fingers nudged the inside of the frame, dust tickling her nose as she did so.
Releasing a sigh of relief, she withdrew the folded piece of paper, which was the precious copy of a page from Brunner’s bank ledger.
She had wanted to have more to send in the diplomatic bag, but espionage, as always, was proving painfully slow, so she must send what she had gathered so far.
Her Baker Street experience in the cipher room told her that intelligence boffins often found vital information between the words, and it could be far more significant than it seemed on the surface.
It wasn’t for her to play God and decide what went when, so she planned to include it in the pouch via Tom’s envelope for the Inter-Services Research Bureau, which was the dull cover name they used for the SOE.
The door handle moved, but the locked door didn’t open. Lizzie rushed to open it and let Tom in. They looked at each other like the co-conspirators they were.
‘Got it?’ he asked.
‘Yes, here it is. It’s safer for us all if you don’t read it. Please add it to your envelope.’
Tom nodded, his expression solemn. They were both well drilled in the security protocols of the SOE, and he knew that no matter how curious he might be, it was better for him in case he was arrested not to know what she was sending.
‘Very well, but I must warn you, it takes forever to get there these days.
Before the Boche occupied Vichy France, there was a faster route, but since then it's been hit and miss.’
Lizzie’s head jerked up. ‘It’s too dangerous to keep another copy. What if it goes missing?’
Tom sighed. ‘It’s a chance you’ll have to take. The odds are reasonable it will get there, but I was just warning you. If it’s critical that the contents get through, I recommend you send a summary via radio, then at least there’s something recorded.’
Lizzie sighed. She could tell the SOE about the entries, but that would never hold the weight of tangible proof.
Her goal was to show links from Brunner’s bank to the Swiss banking system that was suspected of laundering Nazi-looted gold and assets.
The ledger entries were just a tiny piece of the puzzle, and talking about them wouldn’t help.
‘It’s alright. I’ll take my chances. It’s the documentation they need. ’
Tom looked intrigued. ‘It all sounds very mysterious. I’ve been here for years and haven’t found anything that fascinating to include in the pouch. I must say I’m itching to know what you’ve discovered, but of course I will honour the protocol.’
‘Thank you, Tom. I wish I could share my findings, but that’s the way of things, isn’t it?’
Tom inserted the folded copy of paper into a large envelope marked ISRB and sealed it. ‘There we are. I’ll have it ready for when they call for it and let you know when it’s gone. Hopefully, it will find its way to London in the next few weeks, but it could take longer.’
Lizzie went back to work. It wasn’t long before her lunch break, so she tied up some loose ends and got signatures from Pemberton, who was in between meetings.
After he signed, he said, ‘Tomorrow, I have a meeting with Brunner at the bank. His secretary just called through and said it’s urgent.
I’ll need you to come with me. Apparently, he wishes to make adjustments to a contract.
Damned inconvenient, but the wheels of commerce wait for no man, so we’ll have to show up at 10 a.m.’
The development alarmed Lizzie, but it was an excellent opportunity to see Brunner again. She’d been wanting to know if he meant to deliver more information to her and if she could find a minute when Pemberton was distracted, perhaps she could ask him.
The following morning, they entered Brunner’s office, and he welcomed them in his usual friendly manner.
Pemberton accepted the offer of a morning aperitif, but Lizzie opted for coffee.
She needed a clear head, and she fixed Brunner with a subtle yet questioning look.
They had progressed too far into treacherous waters for her to be coy.
Whilst Pemberton fussed over his seat, Lizzie followed Brunner’s directions to a table on one side, where the contract awaited an amendment.
Brunner glanced at Pemberton, who appeared to be enjoying his beverage, and the banker slipped a note out of his jacket sleeve onto the contract.
She read the words written in black ink:
Tap the contract once if you received my package.
Lizzie pretended to study the top page of the document and tapped it once. She noticed Brunner relax visibly, and he permitted himself a small smile. Beneath that instruction it said:
If you did, I will leave another in the same spot this afternoon. Collect it as soon as you can. This must not fall into anyone else’s hands.
Lizzie’s heart pumped fast as she read the banker’s message, excited something was finally happening.
She’d feared she would be at the Legation for the foreseeable future.
Things had moved so slowly, and all she had were suspicions and no concrete evidence.
She couldn’t return to London until she had enough to complete her mission, and it seemed like it would be a long, slow operation.
Now she glanced at Brunner and nodded discreetly.
He withdrew the note and shoved it into his pocket with his back turned to Pemberton, who sat near the desk finishing his drink.
‘What are the changes?’ Pemberton called across to Lizzie in clipped English.
‘A minor change. I’m afraid I missed a spelling error in one of the company names and it’s been corrected. You can sign it now.’
Pemberton extracted his fancy ink pen and signed with a flourish as she placed it before him. He stood. ‘I can’t dally as I have another meeting to attend.’
Brunner said he quite understood and apologised for the inconvenience of calling him in at such short notice for a minor amendment. ‘It’s a slight change, but you know how accurate these contracts must be.’
Pemberton shook Brunner’s hand and signalled to Lizzie that they were about to leave.
Lizzie said, ‘Good day, Herr Brunner. Thank you for your attention to detail. It is much appreciated and sorry for the oversight.’
When they exited the private banking sanctuary and had stepped beneath the arcades, Pemberton turned to Lizzie. ‘What was that all about, do you imagine? Has the chap taken a fancy to you or something? I’ve never been called back for such a minor amendment.’
Lizzie kept her expression deadpan as he ranted about the inconvenience. When he had finished griping, she said, ‘I don’t need to tell you what sticklers for detail the Swiss are. Better to cross the Is and Ts now with a little extra effort than to discover later they voided the contract.’
Pemberton sucked his bottom lip as he contemplated Lizzie’s summary. ‘Yes, you make a good point. I confess I grow impatient with the administrative side of things.’
Lizzie assured her boss that she enjoyed that aspect of the work.
Pemberton continued, ‘Personally, I think the man’s a nitpicker, but what can one do? These Swiss bankers like to do things their own way.’
Lizzie exhaled. Pemberton had bought her version of events and said no more of it. The car dropped her back at the Legation, and he wished her good morning and sped off to his next engagement.
Back in the office, she took advantage of the rare absence of his secretary, who was down with a cold, and she let herself into his office and poked around in his files.
After ten minutes, she heard footsteps approaching, and then the door opened slowly.
Lizzie had jumped away from the filing cabinet when she heard the footsteps, and now she leaned over the desk.
She raised her head and saw one of the junior secretaries in the gap.
‘Sorry,’ the secretary said, her cheeks flushing pink. ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you.’
‘Nothing to apologise for,’ Lizzie assured her. ‘I was just checking the details of some paperwork, but I’m finished now.’
The secretary rested some typed letters on the desk, and Lizzie let herself out.
Something wasn’t right about Pemberton, but she had found nothing incriminating.
Wishing she could talk it over with Jack, she shrugged her arms into her coat and put on her hat.
Since her lucky yellow scarf was ruined and had to be discarded, she’d taken to wearing a Bordeaux-coloured item of clothing on her missions.
Jack teased her, saying she was terribly superstitious, but that there was no harm in it.
‘Anything that helps keep you happy gets my vote,’ he said when she showed him her Bern wardrobe.
Spring had arrived, but it was still cold, and as she stepped outside, the bracing wind rushed into her face.
At the café, Ursula served her in her usual good spirits, and Lizzie ate lunch whilst surveying the other patrons.
Over to one side of the café, she noticed the same man who had been there when Brunner had left the crossword clues for her. It couldn’t be just coincidence.
She must be under surveillance by several agents, which presented an additional layer of complexity to overcome when she went to collect Brunner’s next package.
If someone had indeed followed her into her building, she’d evaded them by the skin of her teeth.
How would she manage to collect the package that afternoon without being spotted?