Three Seconds

by Anders Roslund

  Krantz even moved like Grens. Sven, who had never noticed it before, looked around to see if there was a sofa, suddenly convinced that the forensic scientist also stayed in his office sometimes when the light had faded and his own flat meant loneliness.

  "But not this time. There's nothing in the blood that can link your murderer to a specific place, country or even continent."

  "Damn it, Nils, you just said-"

  "But there's something else on the shirt."

  He unfolded the shirt on the workbench with great care.

  "In several places. But here in particular, at the bottom of the right arm. Flower fragments."

  Grens leaned forward in an attempt to see something that could not be seen.

  "It's Blossom. Polish Yellow."

  They were finding it more and more often in raids. The smell of tulips. Chemical amphetamine from factories that used flower fertilizer instead of acetone.

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yes. The ingredients, smell and even the yellow color, like saffron, a sulphate that gives off color in running water."

  "Poland. Again."

  "And, I know exactly where it comes from."

  Krantz folded the shirt with small movements, just as carefully as he had unfolded it.

  "I've analyzed amphetamine with exactly this composition in connection with two other investigations in less than a month. We now know that it is manufactured in an amphetamine factory just outside Siedlce, a town about a hundred kilometers east of Warsaw."

  The strong sunlight had become uncomfortably warm and made his jacket itch on his neck and his shoes feel too tight.

  It was fifteen minutes since the state secretary had left the room for a brief meeting in an even bigger room, and a decision that would mean all or nothing. Piet Hoffmann had a dry mouth and swallowed what should have been saliva, but now was anxiety and fear.

  Strange.

  A small-time dealer who had served a sentence in a locked cell in Österåker prison. A family man with a wife and two young boys whom he had come to love more than anything else in the world.

  He was someone else now.

  A man of thirty-five, sitting on the edge of a desk in a building that was the symbol of power, the state secretary's phone in his agitated hand.

  "Hi."

  "When are you coming back?"

  "Later on this evening. This meeting seems to be going on forever. And I can't leave. How are they?"

  "Do you care?"

  Her voice upset him. It was cold, hollow.

  "Hugo and Rasmus, how are they?"

  She didn't answer. She stood there in front of him-he knew every expression, every gesture, her slim hand massaging her forehead, her feet fidgeting in oversize slippers. Any minute now she would decide whether or not she could bear to carry on being angry.

  "They're a bit better. An hour ago their temperature was one-oh-one point three."

  "I love you."

  He put the phone down, looked at the people around the table and then at the clock. Nineteen minutes had passed. Damn saliva, there wasn't any, no matter how much he tried to swallow. He stretched and had started to walk toward his empty chair over at the far end of the table when the door opened.

  She was back, with a tall, well-built man, half a step behind her. "This is Pål Larsen, the director general."

  She had made her decision.

  "He's going to help us. With what happens next."

  Piet Hoffmann heard what she was saying, and should perhaps have laughed or clapped his hands. He's going to help us. With what happens next. She had made up her mind to overlook his presence which, legally, was tantamount to accomplice to murder. She was taking a risk. And deemed that it was one worth taking. He knew of at least two other occasions where she had granted a secret pardon to infiltrators who had been given a prison sentence. But he was fairly certain that she had never before chosen to overlook what she knew about an unsolved crime-solutions normally stopped at the level of the police.

  "I want to know what this is about."

  The director general of the Swedish Prison and Probation Service made it quite clear that he had no intention of sitting down.

  "You are going to-now, how did we put it-help us position someone." "And who are you?"

  "Erik Wilson, City Police."

  "And you think that I should help you with a placement?"

  "Pål?"

  The state secretary smiled at the general director.

  "Me. You're going to help me."

  The well-built man in a tight suit said nothing, but his body language betrayed his frustration.

  "Your task is to position Paula-the man sitting next to me here-in Aspsås prison to serve a sentence he will be given once he has been arrested for the possession of three kilos of amphetamine."

  "Three kilos? That'll be a long sentence. Then he'll have CO go to a holding prison first, Kumla, before being transferred."

  "Not this time."

  "Yes, he-"

  "Pål?"

  The state secretary had a voice that was soft but could give surprisingly harsh instructions.

  "Deal with it."

  Wilson weathered the embarrassing silence.

  "When Paula arrives at Aspsås, his work duties will already be fixed.

  He'll start as the new cleaner in the administration block and workshop." "Prison management usually only grants cleaning duties as a reward." "Then reward him."

  "And who the hell is Paula? He must have a name? Do you? Because you can talk for yourself, can't you?"

  The director general of the Prison and Probation Service was used to giving orders and being obeyed, not being given them and having to obey.

  "You'll get my name and personal details. So that you can put me in the right prison, give me the right work and make sure that at lock-up time exactly two days after I've arrived, there will be an extensive spot check of every cell in the prison."

  "What the hell-"

  "With dogs. That's important."

  "With dogs? And what happens when we find what you've planted? To the fellow prisoner who you've wasted your drugs on? No chance. I don't buy it. It means putting my staff at risk and as a result, someone being charged for a crime they didn't commit. I just won't buy it."

  The state secretary stepped closer to Larsen, put her hand on the arm of his jacket and looked straight at him while she spoke in a soft voice.

  "Pål, just sort it. I appointed you. And that means that you decide what happens in the Prison and Probation Service, You decide what you and I agree that you should decide. And when you leave, could you please shut the door behind you."

  There was a bit of a draft from an open window farther down the corridor.

  Perhaps that was why the door slammed so loudly.

  "Paula will continue to infiltrate the organization from the inside. We have to make him more dangerous."

  Erik Wilson waited until the noise from the door subsided.

  "He will have committed some serious crimes. He'll be given a long sentence. He'll only be able to operate freely from his cell if he gets respect.

  And when the other prisoners check his criminal record, and you can be sure that they will, on the first day in fact, they will find all the answers we want them to."

  "How?"

  A hint of a frown on the state secretary's blank face.

  "How will he get that background?"

  "I normally use one of my civilian contacts. Someone who works in the national courts administration, a civil servant who files information directly in the criminal records database. An original document from there… well, it's never been questioned yet by anyone in a prison corridor."

  He had expected more questions. About how often he tampered with the national court administration databases. How many people were walking around with false convictions.

  He didn't get any.

  They were sitting at a meeting table where elastic solutions were not unusual and the names an
d titles of key people who adjusted flows or shortened waiting times for court cases were not required.

  "In thirty-eight hours, a wanted person will be arrested and questioned." He looked at Hoffmann.

  "He will plead guilty, state that he acted alone, and a couple of weeks later will agree with a city court judgment and a long sentence that is to be served in Aspsås, one of the country's three high-security prisons."

  The room was still irritatingly bright and wiltingly warm.

  They all stood up. They were done.

  Piet Hoffmann wanted to hammer down the door and run out of the building and not stop until he was holding Zofia's body tight in his arms. But not yet. He wanted it to be formulated as clearly as possible so that there could only be one interpretation.

  Always on your own.

  "Before I leave, I'd like you to summarize exactly what you are guaranteeing me."

  He had expected to be dismissed. But she realized that he needed to hear it.

  "I'll deal with it."

  Piet Hoffmann stepped closer and felt the loose lead slapping against the fabric of his trousers. He leaned slightly to the right, so that it would be directly in front of her; it was important that he caught absolutely everything.

  "How?"

  "I guarantee that you won't be charged for anything that happened at Västmannagatan 79. I guarantee that we will do our best to help you complete your operation in prison. And… that we will look after you when the work is done. I know that you will then have a death threat and be branded throughout the criminal world. We will give you a new life, a new identity, and money to start over again abroad."

  She gave him a vague smile. At least, that's what it looked like when the bright light caught her face.

  "I guarantee you this in my capacity as a state secretary of the Ministry of Justice."

  Wojtek or the Government Offices. It didn't really matter. Same choice of words, same promises. Two sides of the law with the same exit route.

  It was good. But not good enough.

  Trust no one but yourself

  "I still want to know how."

  "We've already done this three times before."

  A glance over at the national police commissioner. He nodded to her.

  "Officially, you will be pardoned. On humanitarian grounds. That doesn't need to be explained in anymore detail. Medical or humanitarian grounds are sufficient for a decision that the Ministry of Justice will then stamp as confidential."

  Piet Hoffmann stood in front of her in silence for a few seconds. He was pleased. He was close enough.

  She had said what he wanted to hear and clearly enough for it to be heard again.

  They walked side by side down the underground corridor that linked the government offices with the parliament building and stopped by an elevator that took them to Gamla Stan and Myntrorget 2. They should have been in a hurry, there wasn't much time left, but it was as if they were both trying to understand where they were actually going.

  "You're an outlaw now."

  Erik Wilson stopped.

  "From now on, you're dangerous to both sides. Wojtek, who will kill you the instant you're exposed as an infiltrator. And for the people who were around the table with us just now too. You now know things that no one in that room will admit. They'll sacrifice you the moment you're a threat, they'll burn you in the same way that the authorities have burned other informers when it's a matter of protecting power. You're Wojtek's main man. You're our main man. But if anything happens, Piet, you're on your own.

  Piet Hoffmann knew what fear felt like and he would fight it off, as he always did, but he needed just a little more time, he wanted to stay in the dark under the streets of Stockholm; if he did that they wouldn't get into the elevator and then into the parked car that was waiting in the courtyard and he wouldn't need to fight anymore.

  "Piet?"

  "Yes?"

  "You have to be in control, at all times. If everything goes wrong… the authorities won't look after you, they'll burn you."

  He started to walk.

  He had exactly thirty-eight hours left.

  PART TWO

  The black minivan stopped in a dark concrete corner of the multi-story garage.

  Second floor, section A.

  "Thirty-eight hours."

  "See you."

  "Outlawed. Don't you forget it."

  Piet Hoffmann put his hand on Erik Wilson's shoulder and then got out of the back seat and breathed in the air that tasted of carbon dioxide. The narrow stairs led down to Regeringsgatan and the capital that was always in a rush.

  Tulips. Church. SwissMiniGun. Ten kilos. Library. Wind meter. Letters. Transmitters. Nitroglycerine. Safety deposit box. CD. Poetry. Grave. Thirty-seven hours and fifty-five minutes left.

  He started to walk along the pavement, passing close to people who looked at him without seeing him, strangers who lacked smiles. He longed for a particular house in a quiet street a few kilometers south of the city, the only place where he wasn't hounded and nothing demanded that he survive. He should call her again. Tulips and nitroglycerine and wind meter, he knew that he was capable and that he could do it in time, but Zofia, he still had no idea what to do about her. If danger and risk were involved, it was enough to be in control, then he could steer the outcome, but with Zofia he was never in control at all, he wasn't able to influence her reactions and feelings, no matter how he tried, he had no way of approaching her on his own terms.

  He loved her so much.

  Now he was doing the same as everyone else, hurrying along the city streets without a smile on his face: Master Samuelsgatan, Klara Norra Kyrkogata, Olof Palmes gata, and into a flower shop called Rose Garden on the corner of Vasagatan, which fronted onto Norra Bantorget. Two customers before him. He relaxed, lost himself in the red and yellow and blue flowers that all had names on small, square signs that he read and promptly forgot.

  "Tulips?"

  The young woman also had a name on a square badge that he had read several times and forgotten.

  "Maybe I should vary it a bit?"

  "Tulips always work well. In bud? From the cold room?"

  "As usual."

  One of the few flower shops in Stockholm that had tulips in May, perhaps because there was one customer of about thirty-five, who regularly came in and bought large bunches if they had been stored at max five degrees and still hadn't come out.

  "Three bunches? One red, and two yellow?"

  "Yes."

  "Twenty-five stems in each bunch? And the plain white cards?" "Please."

  Rustling tissue paper around each bunch. With thanks for a successful partnership, Aspsås Business Association on the card in each of the yellow bunches, and I love you on the one for the red bunch.

  He paid and walked a couple of hundred meters down Vasagatan to a door with a plaque that said Hoffmann Security AB, first floor. He opened the door, turned off the alarm and walked straight across the kitchen to the sink where he had emptied fourteen mules of between fifteen hundred and two thousand grams of amphetamine each, the day before.

  There was a vase in one of the kitchen cupboards. He found it in the one above the extractor fan and filled the heavy crystal glass with water and the bunch of twenty-five red tulips. The other two bunches, fifty light-green stems with as yet unopened, yellow buds, lay lined up across the worktop.

  He turned the oven on to what he guessed was about 125 degrees. It was hard to distinguish exactly where one line changed to two on the old dial.

  The fridge went down from 45 to 35 degrees, and just to be sure, he put a thermometer on the top shelf, as the gauge that was incorporated inside the plastic door was too crude and in any case, difficult to read.

  Piet Hoffmann left the kitchen and the flat with an IKEA bag in his hand, went up the stairs two at a time to the loft and the shiny aluminum pipe, and knocked off the steel band in the way that he had when Henryk had been with him in the morning. Eleven tins, one at a time, from th
e fan heater into the bag. Then he locked up again and went down with eleven kilos of cut amphetamine in his arms.

  I need three days to knock out the competition.

  He checked the oven. It was warm, 125 degrees. He opened the fridge, checked the thermometer on the top shelf, 40 degrees, like in the flower shop, but he had to get the temperature down to 35.

  I want to know how you're going to do it.

  First tin out of the IKEA bag. One thousand grams of amphetamine. More than enough for fifty tulips.

  With tulips and poetry.

  He had cleaned the sink meticulously, but he still found some remains from yesterday that had gotten stuck to the edges of the metal plughole. The unplanned shooting and mules who, in a panic, had to be emptied in the one place they must never be linked to. He turned on the tap and let the hot water run while he picked off the last bits of vomit and milk and brown rubber.

  The fireproof gloves were in one of the drawers with the cutlery. He laid a tulip on each one and put them into the oven, with the round buds nearest to the door. He loved the moment when it happened. Spring and life encapsulated on the end of a green stem. The buds suddenly woke up in the warmth of the oven and revealed their true color for the first time.

  He took them out when they were just a couple of centimeters open, he had to be careful not to wait too long, to lose himself in the beauty, color and life.

  He put them down on the worktop and took out the box of condoms-no ribs and no lubricant and definitely no scent-and carefully poked half a condom down into each bud, then filled it with amphetamine, one tip of a knife at a time. Three grams in the small buds, four in the slightly larger ones, pressed it down hard to get as much as possible in. Then he popped the two amphetamine-filled tulips on a serving dish in the humming freezer between the sink and the range.

  They had to lie there in -65 degrees for ten minutes. Until the buds had closed again, gone back to sleep and hidden their glory. Only then would he move them from the freezer to a fridge regulated to 35 degrees and a long rest that would delay them flowering.