Behind God's Back Read Online Free Page A

Ethel’s hand and gave it a consoling squeeze. It was well manicured; the back of her palm was soft as chamois. It was the hand of an ageing woman.
    â€œI’m sorry, but I need to ask you some unpleasant questions. Is it possible that Samuel had any gambling debts?”
    â€œNot in a million years,” Ethel huffed. “Samuel wouldn’t even play bridge, no matter how hard I tried to get him to. Gambling didn’t interest him in the least.”
    â€œMight he have been mixed up in something criminal, financed a project that later turned out to be criminal?”
    â€œNeither he nor the company had enough money to fund criminal activity. Ariel, I’ll be honest with you… Building our own office building was Samuel’s biggest mistake. We did it right at the peak of the construction market, and it cost five million euros, two of which were borrowed. The building was finished three years ago, but anything extra still goes to paying off the construction loans. Meanwhile, turnover has dropped and things are getting worse and worse. Samuel was worried about that, because he had promised Roni that he would turn over directorship to him at the end of the year. The whole reason Samuel wanted the new building was that it was important to him that Roni have a successful business to run, like the one he had received from his father. Roni and Lea were everything to him. Which is why he decided to stay on as CEO until it was back on its feet…”
    Ethel’s self-control began to crumble, but I had to press on. The previous question had laid the foundation for the one I wanted to ask next. “What if he had been forced to fund criminal activity for the very reason that he wouldn’t have been able to manage the loans otherwise?”
    â€œOh, things weren’t that tight for us. And he meant to take out a new loan from a Finnish bank and pay off the old one. He said he’d had a better loan offer.”
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œA couple of weeks ago.”
    â€œWhere did the old loan come from?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œYou don’t? But you worked for the company, too, didn’t you, in accounting?”
    Tears were streaming down Ethel’s cheeks, and she didn’t even try to wipe them away.
    â€œDo you know what the worst thing is, Ariel? We parted in strife. I gave him a piece of my mind this morning… But how could I have known, you never know… which is why you should always part as friends. When we started dating, we agreed that we would never go to bed until we had settled any arguments…”
    I gave her a minute to calm down and repeated: “You also worked for the company. Shouldn’t you have known about the loan, too?”
    â€œAll I know is that the loan was brokered by Samuel’s friend and the money came from Estonia, but from which bank, I couldn’t tell you. The broker held on to the paperwork.”
    â€œWhy didn’t he take out a loan from a Finnish bank?”
    â€œHe said you could get a loan from Estonia at a lower interest rate. I didn’t argue, because I knew the broker. You know him pretty well yourself.”
    â€œWho are you talking about?”
    â€œOxbaum. He represents the Estonian bank here in Finland.”
    â€œMax Oxbaum?”
    â€œYes.”
    Max Oxbaum was a well-known attorney, my second cousin and my brother Eli’s business partner. Together they owned a law firm named Kafka & Oxbaum.

2
    By now at the latest I could have excused myself from the case, and with good cause. But I didn’t want to. No matter what was revealed during the investigation, my brother would answer for his deeds. If a collision with my brother’s actions looked inevitable, I would step aside at the last minute and, if necessary, hand anything involving him over to another investigator.
    Eli was a successful corporate lawyer and had married into money, too. There had been a time