Three Seconds

by Anders Roslund

  "Ewert."

  "Tor."

  One of the policemen who had been really good and then after years of working together, had suddenly sat down one morning and explained that he couldn't face all the crap anymore, let alone investigate it. They had talked a lot about it at the time and Ewert had understood that that was how things could be when you had something to live for, when you yearned for days without pointless deaths. Einarsson had sat there and did not get up until his superiors had opened the door to the basement and the confiscated goods that were indeed a part of ongoing investigations, but which seldom stayed with you all evening.

  "I've got some boxes I want you to look after."

  The older man behind the counter took the things and read the square letters in blue marker.

  "PI Malmkvist. What the hell is that?"

  "Preliminary investigation Malmkvist."

  "I realize that. But I've never heard of the case."

  "Closed investigation."

  "But then it shouldn't-"

  "I want you to keep them here. In a safe place."

  "Ewert, I-"

  Einarsson was silent, studied Grens for a long time, then the box. He smiled. Preliminary investigation Malmkvist. Reference number 19361231. He gave another even broader smile.

  "Jesus, that's her birthday, isn't it?"

  Grens nodded. "A closed investigation."

  "Are you sure about that?"

  "I'll be down with another two boxes."

  "In that case… investigations like this are best stored here. If the stuff is unique, I mean. Better than some unsafe attic or damp cellar."

  Ewert Grens hadn't realized how tense he was until, to his surprise, he felt his shoulders, arms and legs slowly relax. He hadn't been sure that Einarsson would understand.

  "I need a chain of custody record. So, if you could just fill these in now. Then I can find a safe place."

  Einarsson handed him two blank forms and a pen.

  "In the meantime, I'll mark clearly that it's classified information. Because it is, isn't it?"

  Grens nodded again.

  "Good. Then it can only be opened by authorized persons."

  The policeman who had once been a detective himself and who now wore a black apron and worked behind a counter in the basement, slapped a red sticker over the flaps of the box, a seal that could not be broken by anyone other than the man who could identify himself as DS Ewert Grens.

  Ewert was full of gratitude as he watched his colleague struggle over to the shelves with the cardboard box in his arms.

  Someone who didn't need an explanation.

  He left the form on the counter and turned to leave when he heard Einarsson singing one of Siw Malmkvist's songs somewhere between the rows of seized property.

  The tears I cried for you could fill an ocean

  The Swedish version of "Everybody's Somebody's Fool." Ewert Grens stopped and shouted in the direction of the cramped storage space.

  "Not now."

  But you don't care how many tears I cry

  "Einarsson!" Ewert bellowed, and Einarsson popped his head round some shelves in surprise.

  "Not now, Einarsson. You're disturbing my grief."

  He felt lighter when he left-the basement was almost attractive and he shook his head at the elevator and decided instead to take the stairs three floors up. He was about halfway when the mobile phone in the inner pocket of his jacket began to chime.

  "Yes?"

  `Are you heading the investigation into the murder in Västmannagatan 79?"

  Ewert Grens was out of breath. He didn't often take the stairs. "Who's asking?"

  "Says who?"

  The voice was Danish, but easy to understand, probably from somewhere near Copenhagen, the part of Denmark that Grens had worked with most over the years.

  "Was it you or me who phoned?"

  "Apologies. Jacob Andersen, crime operations unit Copenhagen, or what you call homicide."

  "And what do you want?"

  "To know whether you are leading the investigation into the murder in Västmannagatan 79?"

  "Who said it was a murder?"

  "I did. And it's just possible that I know who the victim is."

  Grens stopped on the last step, tried to catch his breath while he waited for the voice that had presented itself as a Danish policeman to continue.

  "Do you want me to call you back?"

  "Put the phone down."

  Grens hurried to his room, found the file he was looking for in the third drawer of his desk. He leafed through it for a moment or two and then left it open in front of him as he dialed the switchboard of Copenhagen police and asked for Jacob Andersen from the crime operations unit.

  "Andersen." It was the same voice.

  "Put the phone down."

  He called the switchboard again and asked to be transferred to Jacob Andersen's mobile phone.

  Andersen."

  The same voice.

  "Open the window."

  "What?"

  "If you want the question answered, then open the window."

  He heard the voice put the phone down on the desk and fiddle for a while with a rusty window hook.

  "Okay?"

  "What can you see?"

  "Hambrogade."

  "Anything else?"

  "The water if I lean out far enough."

  "Half of Copenhagen can see water."

  "Langebro."

  Grens had looked out of the window from the crime operations unit several times. He knew that it was the water by Langebro that was sparkling in the sun.

  "Where does Moelby sit?"

  "My boss?"

  "Yes."

  "In the room opposite. He's not here right now Otherwise-" 'And Christensen?"

  "There is no bloody Christensen here."

  "Good. Good; Andersen. Now we can continue."

  Grens waited, it was the Danish voice that had phoned him, so it was the one that should continue. He went over to his own window. Not much water to be seen in the dreary courtyard of the police headquarters.

  "I have reason to believe that the dead person worked for us. I'd like to see a photograph, if possible. Could you fax one to me?"

  Ewert Grens reached for a folder that was lying on his desk, checked that Krantz's pictures were still there, the ones that had been taken in the flat, when the face still had skin.

  "You'll get a photo in five minutes. I'll wait for the call when you've had a look."

  Erik Wilson enjoyed walking in the center of Stockholm.

  Mad people, suits, beautiful women, pushers, strollers, running clothes, dogs, bikes, and the odd person who wasn't going anywhere. Half past ten, mid-morning in the city. He had passed them all on the recently repaired pavement in the short distance from the police headquarters to Sankt Eriksplan. It was cooler here, easier to breathe; it had already been too warm in southern Georgia, and in a few weeks it would be unbearable. He had left Newark Liberty International in the afternoon, just after five local time, and landed at Arlanda eight hours later, early in the morning. He must have slept a bit on the plane, fallen asleep despite the two old ladies in the seats in front who chatted incessantly, and the man in the seat beside him who coughed loudly every five minutes. As the taxi approached the city and the police headquarters at Kronoberg, he asked the driver to stop first at Västmannagatan 79, the address he had been given by Paula. Wilson showed his ID to the security guard at the door of the fourth floor flat, with blue-and-white tape criss-crossed over the doorway and a sign that said it was a secured crime scene, and then walked on his own through the abandoned rooms that not even a day earlier had witnessed a man being killed. He started by the large, dark patch on the carpet under the table in the sitting room. A life had seeped away just here. An overturned chair was lying by the edge of the patch, the stain of death. He peered at a hole in the ceiling and another hole in the closed kitchen door, obvious damage from the split bullet. Then he stood for a while by the pins
and flags that marked the discoloring on the sitting room wall, and which was interesting in terms of the angle and force of the shot. That was what he had come for, to analyze the blood splashes. That was what he needed for the next meeting, that and Paula's version. Erik Wilson concentrated on the funnel-shaped area that the guys from forensics had marked out with two pieces of string, one end of which had no flags and no blood and no brain tissue. He studied and memorized it until he was certain of exactly where the two people who were important to him had been at the moment the shot was fired: where the person who fired had stood and where the person who hadn't fired must have been standing.

  There was a pleasant breeze blowing on Sankt Eriksbron as he looked out over the boats, trains, cars-that was what he liked so much about walking, being able to pause for a while, to look.

  He had heard Paula's version of events and the tension last night on his mobile phone, and now that he had had the opportunity to study the flat in peace and quiet, it looked like what he said was true. He knew that Paula was capable and that if the choice had been between life and death, Paula had both the strength and the ability to kill. It could easily have been he who fired the shot, but Wilson was now certain that that was not the case. Paula had sounded more and more harassed and frightened with every phone call. After nine years working together as handler and infiltrator the close contact had developed into trust, and Erik Wilson had learned to hear when he was telling the truth.

  He stopped in front of the door to Sankt Eriksplan 17, brittle glass in an old wooden frame, so close to the heavy traffic of the main road. He looked around. A face passed by but didn't notice. He checked again, then went in.

  He had left the marks and splashes of blood in .V.stmannagatan, then taken the waiting taxi to Kronoberg and finally to an office in the homicide unit. According to the Duty Management System, a detective had already been assigned to the case. Ewert Grens, assisted by Sven Sundkvist and Mariana Hermansson. Grens and Wilson had worked together in the same unit for a number of years, but he didn't really know the strange detective superintendent. He had tried to make contact for a long time, without any response whatsoever, and had then just given up, decided that he did not need an old man in his life who had once been the best, but now just listened to Siw Malmkvist and was bitter. Erik Wilson stayed in front of the computer. He switched from the DMS to the Crime Reporting system and searched for Västmannagatan 79, and found three hits in the past ten years. He called up the most recent entry, dealing in stolen goods, one ton of refined copper that was sold by a man with a Finnish name in one of the flats on the ground floor.

  Erik Wilson closed the door to Sankt Eriksplan 17 and paused in the silence, away from the traffic frenzy. The stairwell was dark and when he was unsuccessful in his third attempt to turn on the lights he decided to take the small elevator up to the fifth floor, getting out into a construction site. The flat was being totally renovated, so the tenants had been moved out. He stood on the brown paper and listened to nothing until he was certain that he was alone, then opened the locked door with STENBERG written on the letter box, went in to the two rooms and kitchen and checked over the furniture that was protected by transparent plastic sheeting. This was how he operated. A couple of the biggest private landlords in the city gave him the keys and work schedules for flats that were empty and being renovated. This was number five. Wilson had used it for just under a month; he'd met several different infiltrators here. He would keep it until the renovation was finished and the tenants had moved back in.

  He pulled back the plastic from the kitchen window, opened it, and looked out over the communal gardens at the back, with carefully raked gravel paths and some new outdoor furniture over by the two swings and short slide. Paula would be there in a minute. He'd come out of the back door of the house opposite that had an entrance at Vulcanusgatan 15. Always in an empty flat, always with a communal garden at the back that could be accessed from another address.

  Erik Wilson closed the window and taped the plastic back against the glass, just as the door below opened and Paula hurried along the gravel path.

  Ewert Grens impatiently clutched the folder that contained Nils Krantz's photographs of a dead man. Ten minutes earlier, he had sent one of them to a fax machine in the crime operations unit in Copenhagen, a photograph of a head that had been washed, but still had skin, before the autopsy. There were three other pictures in the folder and he studied them while he waited. One taken from the front, one from the left side, one from the right. A considerable amount of his working day was taken up looking at pictures of death and he had learned that it was often difficult to distinguish whether someone was asleep or actually dead. This time it was fairly obvious as there were three great holes in the head. If he hadn't been to the scene or been handed a photograph by someone from forensics or received it by fax from a colleague somewhere else, he usually started by looking for the shiny steel stand that the head always rests on, and if he found it, it was a photograph from an autopsy. He looked at the pictures again and wondered what he would look like, what a person studying the photo of his head on a steel stand would think.

  "Grens."

  The phone finally rang and he put the folder down on the desk. "Jacob Andersen, Copenhagen."

  "Well?"

  "The photograph you faxed."

  "Yes?"

  "It's probably him."

  "Who?"

  "One of my informers."

  "Who?"

  "I can't say. Not yet. Not before I'm absolutely certain. I don't want to disclose an informer unnecessarily. You know how it works."

  Ewert Grens knew how it worked and didn't like it. The need to protect the identity of covert human intelligence sources-CHIS- had increased as they had become more numerous, and sometimes was more important than the need for the police to provide each other with correct information. Nowadays, when each and every policeman could call themselves a handler and had the right to make their own CHIS contacts, the secrecy was more often a hindrance than a help.

  "What do you need?"

  "Everything you've got."

  "Dental impressions. Fingerprints. We're waiting for the DNA." "Send it."

  "I'll do that straight away. And I assume that you'll call again in a few minutes."

  The head on the steel stand.

  Grens stroked his finger over the smooth photographic paper.

  An infiltrator. From Copenhagen. One of two people who spoke Swedish in a flat when a Polish mafia execution took place.

  Who was the other one?

  Piet Hoffmann walked down the gravel path through the dull communal garden. A quick glance up at the fifth floor of the building opposite, where he caught a glimpse of Wilson's head in a window that happened not to be protected by plastic. He had left Frédéric Chopin on the first plane just after eight, the Polish carrier LOT. He had spent the night with his forehead pressed against a cold windowpane, but he wasn't particularly tired. Anxiety and adrenaline from a day that had included a person being killed and an important meeting in Warsaw jostled in his breast; he was definitely heading somewhere and had no idea how to stop. He had called home and Rasmus had picked up the phone and didn't want to let go of the receiver because he had so much to tell; it hadn't been easy to follow it all, something about a cartoon and a monster that was green and horrible. Piet Hoffmann swallowed and shook, as you do when you miss someone more than you were physically prepared for-he would see them this evening and he would hold all three of them tight until they asked him to let go. He got to the fence and opened the gate, and moved from the garden of Vulcanusgatan 15 to that of Sankt Eriksplan 17, and then in through the back door to the stairs that remained dark, even though he flicked the switch for the lights several times. Five flights of steep stairs, never a elevator with the risk of getting stuck, each step covered with brown paper that made it difficult to move without making a noise. He checked the bells and names on the letter boxes. The door with STENBERG on it opened from insid
e at eleven hundred hours precisely.

  Erik Wilson had taken the plastic off two chairs and the table in the kitchen and was now uncovering the gas cooker and a cupboard under the sink. He hunted around until he found a pan and a jar of something that looked like instant coffee.

  "The Stenbergs' treat. Whoever they are."

  They sat down.

  "How's Zofia?"

  "I don't know."

  "You don't know?"

  "We haven't seen much of each other in the past couple of days. But her voice-we spoke for quite a long time on the phone last night and again this morning-and I can hear it, she knows that I'm lying, that I'm lying more than usual."

  "Take care of her. You know what I mean?"

  "You know damn well that I take good care of her."

  "Good, that's good, Piet. Nothing you do is worth more than her and the kids. I just want you to remember that."

  He didn't like the instant coffee much, there was a stale aftertaste, reminiscent of the coffee in the more expensive restaurants in Warsaw.

  "He should never have said he was the police."

  "Was he?"

  "I don't know. I don't think so. I think he was like me. And that he was bloody frightened."

  Wilson nodded. He probably had been frightened. And in a panic had flung out the words that he thought would protect him. But had had the opposite effect.

  "I heard him scream I'm the police, a gun being cocked and then a shot." Hoffmann put his cup down-the instant coffee was undrinkable, no matter how hard he tried.

  "It's been a while since I saw someone die close at hand. That silence when they stop breathing and you hold on to the last breath until it ebbs away."

  Erik Wilson was looking at someone who had been touched by death and lived with the responsibility for it; the rather lean man in front of him who could be hard as nails when he needed to be, was someone else right now It was three years since they had taken the first steps to infiltrate Wojtek Security International. The national crime operations division had identified the company as a flourishing branch of the Eastern European mafia that was already established in Norway and Denmark. The CHIS controller at City Police had forwarded the intelligence report to Wilson and reminded him of Paula's background, that Polish was his other mother tongue and that he was in ASPEN, the criminal intelligence database, and had a criminal record that was solid enough to withstand any checks and probing.