Behind God's Back

3

The Jacobson family business had been founded by Samuel Jacobson’s father, Ruben Jacobson, back in the 1930s. It imported office machines and supplies. The company had grown rapidly after the war, ballooning from a small office-machine repair shop into a big-time importer. The era was so favourable for expansion that everyone who showed a little initiative did all right for themselves. Ruben Jacobson showed a lot of initiative and did better than all right. He spoke German and English, and managed to secure exclusive import and maintenance rights for a couple of international brands, and that was enough.

When computers burst onto the market in the 1980s, manual and electric typewriters turned into fishing-net weights and scrap metal overnight. That moment almost proved fatal for the company. Ruben didn’t think much of computers, and because at the age of seventy-five he was still the chair of the board, his opinion mattered. But Ruben wasn’t stupid; it didn’t take him long to realize that he had bet on the wrong horse, and he changed course. He stepped aside and turned control over to his only son, Samuel. His daughter lived in Denmark; she wasn’t interested in office machines.

The maintenance and repair company that had its start in an old wooden building in a Punavuori courtyard moved to new, more central premises in 1948. In the ’50s, Ruben Jacobson bought a bigger space in Vallila, and the firm operated there until Samuel Jacobson commissioned a new building for it in a northern Helsinki industrial area in 2005.

The new building had two stories and a glass-and-aluminium facade. The lower floor contained the storeroom, the repair shop and social areas; the upper floor the offices and conference room.

I learnt the company’s history from the brochure I read at the break room table. I knew the rest from before.

Stenman and I were waiting for the company’s chief financial officer, who was at some negotiations away from the offices. He had promised to return as soon as possible. It had already been almost twenty minutes.

“If you’d married Jacobson’s daughter, you’d be investigating your father-in-law’s murder right now,” Stenman observed. She had crossed her long, denim-sheathed legs. Her coat was unbuttoned, and underneath there was a pale-blue blouse whose two top buttons were also open. My eyes took in the scenery in spite of the prohibition I had set for myself. “So why didn’t you, anyway?” Stenman asked.

“Because I got caught with another woman. It’s not as dramatic or sexy as it sounds, but it was enough for Lea. She said she just couldn’t respect me any more. We were both eighteen.”

“Sounds pretty melodramatic.”

“You are when you’re eighteen.”

“Did you regret it?”

“Not then, and not now. It wasn’t even a serious relationship. We were just more feeling things out — with both hands. I knew Lea was looking for a different kind of man.”

“Feeling things out with both hands, huh?” Stenman chuckled. “You must have been pretty wild.”

“No more so than most kids that age.”

“Did she find what she was looking for? She’s married and has kids, right?”

“Hopefully. She married a businessman.”

“Do you mean that at least she has money?”

“I think that weighed in the balance.”

Stenman had divorced a couple of years ago, and had definitely not been left high and dry. She had taken the two children and moved into a large apartment in Kruununhaka. I had been by a couple of times to pick her up for work. You didn’t buy a place like that on a detective’s salary.

A man approaching sixty walked in. My hunch was that the chief financial officer, Pekka Hulkko, had just arrived. He wiped the sweat from his brow. He must have come in a rush. I stood up.

“I’m sorry you had to wait… It’s just that you never imagine that… The letter is in my office.”

We followed Hulkko into a room with a view of the tallest building in Vantaa. The letter was in a plastic file organizer.

“No one has touched it since I read it, so we wouldn’t leave any fingerprints.”

Television police shows were of some use after all.

The contents were brief and to the point, like vitriolic outbursts usually are: “Greedy fucking Jewish scum. One day you’re going to get what you deserve. The Seeds of Hate.”

No other signatures, or anything else for that matter.

“When did this arrive?”

“It was in the company’s mail box this morning. There was nothing on the envelope, so someone came last night or early this morning and left it there.”

“Have you ever received anything like this before?”

“Not that I know of. I think Samuel would have told me if we had. He always took matters like this seriously.”

A round table stood in the corner, surrounded by four chairs. Hulkko invited us to sit.

“Jacobson didn’t come in to work for three days. Do you know why?”

“He called and said he wasn’t feeling well. The flu, I guess. It’s going around.”

“Doesn’t it seem odd to you that the threat was delivered here?” Stenman asked.

“How so? Jacobson is a Jew. For some people at least, this is a Jewish company. People who oppose Israel won’t even eat Jaffa-brand oranges.”

“But Jacobson wasn’t especially well known. How did the person who made the threat know he was a Jew in the first place?”

“Those guys know. They read the congregation newsletters and spend time online. And you can guess from the name — the first name, at least.”

“We haven’t heard about any other similar threats. You’d think they’d have started from the top, from the head of the congregation or the rabbi or some public persona.”

“Aren’t the police investigating that Seeds of Hate group? You’d think that’d be the place they’d start looking for the perpetrator.”

“The other letters are different. This is a short, violent outburst that seems personal. The others contain ramblings of a deeper ideological nature,” Stenman explained.

“Crazy people are crazy. Who can tell what’s going through their heads? In any event, this is a racist threat.”

“Do you have surveillance cameras?” Stenman asked.

“No. We do have an alarm system for the indoor premises, though.”

I launched a sneak attack. “How is the company doing financially?”

Hulkko appeared almost horrified by my blunt question. “I don’t understand what that has to do with Jacobson’s murder.”

“Jacobson’s wife told us that the company had taken out a loan from an Estonian finance company to fund the construction of this building. Have there been any problems with the loan?”

“Absolutely not… Some minor delays in payments perhaps, but they’ve already been settled.”

“And yet Jacobson planned on transferring the loan to a Finnish bank?”

“Yes, he did. Circumstances change. When we originally took out the loan, it was cheaper in Estonia. Now things aren’t going as well there, and interest rates at Finnish banks are more affordable. There’s nothing more to it than that.”

“Was it the father’s or the son’s idea?”

“Samuel’s, but Roni wasn’t opposed.”

I told Hulkko that Jacobson hadn’t been away because of the flu, but because he was afraid of something. Hulkko shook his head in disbelief. “Are you sure?”

“Can you think of anything that would have frightened him so much he didn’t dare to set foot outside his home?”

“Nothing except those fanatics. Maybe they’ve threatened him before. What else could it be?”

“His wife came up with several reasons,” I said. “Jacobson could have owed someone money, he could have had an affair and been afraid of the woman’s husband, he could have gotten mixed up in criminal activity…”

“Ethel has an active imagination. In matters like those, Samuel was as conventional as they come. There was no way he had anything to do with criminals or other men’s wives. He would have run in the other direction if a woman had approached him with those kinds of intentions. He was absolutely faithful.”

Absolutely faithful, I thought. I had no trouble at all imagining Samuel Jacobson succumbing if faced with irresistible temptation.

“Still, isn’t it understandable that his wife imagined all kinds of things because her husband refused to tell her what was going on?”

“Could be, but I still find it pretty incredible.”

“How long have you worked for Jacobson?”

“Almost twenty years.”

“Were you two on good terms?”

“There’s no other way I would have stayed here so long. This has been a good place to work, always has been. They look out for their employees.”

Stenman found this odd. “And yet he didn’t give you even the slightest hint as to the nature of his fears?”

“Samuel was private when it came to his personal affairs. And it’s not as if I were his best friend.”

“Who was, then?”

“I’m not sure, but I’m guessing you’ll find whomever it is at the synagogue. Samuel was a very active member of the congregation in recent years. He belonged to the board of trustees. He was so proud when he was elected that he brought in cake for the entire staff. Once, when we were alone, he told me that it was only now that he was older that he felt any affinity for the Israeli cause… I heard that he wrote some harsh things in the congregation newsletter about the Palestinian situation and Arabs. He even showed me one of the pieces, and it was pretty provocative. Maybe that set someone off.”

“Maybe. How many people work here?”

“About twenty. We were almost half again as many in the ’80s, since the repair and maintenance department was so big, but computers changed that, too.”

Stenman stepped in. “Has there been any tension inside the company? Have you had to let employees go, for instance?”

“We’ve been hit by the recession just like everyone else, but luckily we haven’t had to resort to lay-offs yet. Samuel believes that a company should take care of its own, even when things aren’t going well. Roni and I suggested that four employees be offered an early retirement package, but he wouldn’t hear of it, because the employees wanted to stay on.”

“What about any lay-offs for reasons other than the recession?”

“There was one. An unfortunate case.”

“When did it happen?”

“A couple of months ago, give or take.”

Stenman wanted more. “What happened?”

“Drinking on the job. A shame. He was a good employee.”

A thought occurred to me. “Could you please ask all the employees that are here today to gather together? I’d like to say a few words to them.”

“Now?”

“Yes. Before that, I want to have a look inside the safe. Jacobson’s wife gave me the keys.”

Hulkko told the secretary to call the staff together. In the meantime, I examined the safe, which was in the CEO’s office. It contained cash reserves of five thousand euros, a cheque-book and a packet of lunch vouchers.

Ten minutes later, all of the employees were in the conference room except the driver, who was out on his rounds. There wasn’t enough room for everyone to sit. I stood at the head of the table and surveyed the crowd, which was eyeing me inquisitively.

“I’m Detective Kafka from the Helsinki Police, and this is my colleague, Detective Stenman. We’re investigating the murder of your employer, Samuel Jacobson. We’re trying to find a motive for the crime. Discovering it is critical to our investigation. I know from experience that motives can be surprising. It could be something that happened years ago; it could be hate, love, jealousy, money, racism, revenge. It might be related to work or free time. We know that Jacobson had stayed home from work for three days because he was afraid of something, but we don’t know what. I’m hoping you all can help me. He may have told someone something, or one of you may have heard or seen something that can help us make progress in the investigation. So if you know something, you can either tell us now or contact us later. We’ll leave our phone numbers on the bulletin board.”

The silence lasted at least twenty seconds.

“I’m curious about the letter that was found in the mail box this morning,” said a balding man in his fifties. From his mustard-coloured coat, I deduced he worked in maintenance.

“We’re looking into it and any possible connection to Jacobson’s murder, but for the moment we can’t tell you any more than that. So let’s agree that we ask the questions, you just tell us if you know something.”

Another twenty seconds of silence. Then a young guy standing in the doorway raised his hand, like a kid asking for permission to answer a teacher’s question.

“Yes?”

“I don’t know if this has anything to do with it, but a couple of weeks ago the boss asked me to check the security and firewall on his home computer. He suspected that someone had hacked into it and installed spyware. I didn’t find anything, but I was pretty sure someone had got into it. They had just done a good job cleaning up after themselves, so I couldn’t tell who it was and if anything had happened. I updated the virus software and scanned the computer.”

The guy seemed out of breath after his high-speed monologue.

“Did Jacobson say why he suspected someone had got into his computer?”

“He just said that he had read somewhere how easy it was to break into computers and wanted to make sure that the competitors didn’t know anything about the company’s bids and stuff. It sounded a little strange coming out of the blue like that, but I still did what he asked me to.”

“When you say Jacobson’s home computer, are you referring to his laptop?”

“Yes.”

“What do you mean that you were pretty sure someone had got into it?”

“Files had been copied from his computer in the middle of the night. I asked Jacobson if he had been using his computer then, and he said no.”

“What files?”

“Email, at least.”

“Did Jacobson have any ideas as to who the infiltrator might have been?” Stenman asked.

“No.”

“Did he ever mention it again?”

“No. It didn’t go any further than that.”

I thanked him and asked if anyone had anything else to report, but everyone just stood there, exchanging glances in silence.

“Thank you. You can get back to work.”

Before we left, I went over to the bulletin board and pinned up my number, Stenman’s number and our unit’s twenty-four-hour number.

“This is a pretty unusual case,” Stenman said, once we were outside. I admitted it was.

“Why didn’t Jacobson contact the police if he was too scared to even leave the house?” she wondered.

“Because he was mixed up in something he couldn’t tell the police about.”

“That’s what I was thinking. And that threat letter is another wrinkle.”

“You think it’s a ruse to get us to believe that the killer is a racist?”

Stenman chuckled. “Yes, don’t you?”

“Yes. The timing was too convenient — right before the murder — and it really isn’t even close to the other ones.”

I scanned the vicinity. Across the road there was a metalworks, up and over to the right a car dealership squeezed in behind a chain-link fence, and to the left a plastics and rubber wholesaler.

“While we’re here, let’s have a look and see if there are any surveillance cameras in the area.”

We started from the rubber company. Apparently rubber wasn’t of much interest to thieves, because we didn’t find a camera. The car dealership, on the other hand, produced results. The camera was on the wall of the hut that contained the office. It was positioned to monitor the used cars standing three-deep in the fenced lot, which meant it was aimed right at the road.

Stenman turned into the lot and pulled up next to the hut. The salesman came out before we had a chance to open our doors. The recession was so bad even car dealers were picking up the pace.

“Hi there. What kind of car are you looking for?”

I showed the salesman my police badge, and introduced us. He looked openly disappointed.

I indicated to the camera. “Is that surveillance camera in operation?”

“That’s the idea.”

“Show us how it works.”

We followed the salesman in. The hut was hot and smelt of coffee that had been standing too long. A rack filled with car keys hung on the wall. A copier and a printer occupied one corner, and a computer and the surveillance camera monitor stood on the desk.

“I can use this control here to aim and zoom the camera. When I go home at night, I start recording. It goes to this hard drive. If nothing out of the ordinary happens, I empty the hard drive once a week.”

“Show us how wide an area the camera captures.”

The dealer’s curiosity was now clearly piqued. “What is it you’re looking for?”

I didn’t answer; I just told him to play the recording. He fiddled with the machine for a while, and finally got it to work. The guy was no technological prodigy.

“So this is from this morning.”

Stenman and I watched the image intently. The clock was running at the bottom of the screen; the footage was from 8 a.m. It was already light, and we had no problem making out the road between the gaps in the rows of cars — or the left corner of Jacobson’s business and the mail box standing there. A van entered from the right and disappeared to the left.

“Looks good. I’m interested in the period between yesterday evening and eight o’ clock this morning. Can you copy the last ten hours onto a DVD or something?”

“That’s gonna take a heck of a lot of time.”

“Then it’s probably best if we take the hard drive back to headquarters and go through it at our leisure.”

“Don’t you need some sort of permission slip for that?”

“Do you have some reason to not show that recording to the police?”

“Of course not,” he said. “When would I get it back?”

“Tomorrow at the latest.”

“Oh, go ahead and take it, then. It’s never been any use anyway.”