Three Seconds

by Anders Roslund

  A couple of hours more.

  The plastic bag would be sitting there behind the curtain rail and the hard fuckwit wouldn't know what had hit him before it was over.

  Ewert Grens stood behind his desk clutching the telephone receiver even though the conversation had finished some time ago now. He was holding a piece of paper that was stained with coffee and almond slice crumbs.

  Nils Krantz had been right.

  The name at the bottom of his short list was already in prison.

  He had been caught with three kilos of amphetamine in his car trunk, had been held on remand and in record time had been convicted and taken to the prison at Aspsås.

  Amphetamine that smelled of flowers.

  A distinct scent of tulip.

  He lay down on the hard bunk and smoked a cigarette. It was several years now since he'd rolled his own-not since the days when there were no children, as both he and Zofia had stopped the day they saw a centimeter-long life on a monitor; something that was barely visible but which was affected by every breath they took. He was restless, smoked too fast and soon lit another… it was hell just lying here waiting.

  He got up, listened, his ear to the hard cell door.

  Nothing.

  He heard sounds that weren't there. Maybe the faint clunking that frequently came from the pipes in the ceiling. Maybe someone's TV. He'd chosen nor to have one so that he didn't need to participate in the world outside.

  If everything went according to plan, they would come any minute.

  He lay down again, a third cigarette, it was good just to hold something in his hand. Quarter to eight. It was only quarter of an hour since lock-up, and normally it took about half an hour-they usually waited until everyone had settled.

  Everything was in place, just as he wanted it. He had had final confirmation in the bathroom that evening when the guards were waiting for everyone to go back to their cells. Both the plastic bags that until recently had been stowed some meters down one of the toilets' waste pipes at the end of a piece of elastic were now in Block H, hidden behind two curtain rails.

  Now.

  He was absolutely certain.

  Dogs barking eagerly, black shoes slapping on the corridor floor.

  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.

  Farther down the corridor, the first cell doors were flung open.

  Loud voices clashed as one of the Finns started to shout and one of the guards screamed even louder.

  It took twenty-five minutes and eight cells before they got to him and a hand threw open his door.

  "Inspection."

  "You can suck my cock, you flicking screw."

  "Out of the cell, Hoffmann. Before you get what you want."

  Pier Hoffmann spat as they dragged him out into the corridor. Criminal. He carried on spitting as they checked all the cavities. You have to be a criminal to play a criminal. He stood outside the door in white, badly fitting boxers while two guards went into his cell and searched everywhere for what might be hidden, but couldn't be found.

  Two cells were inspected at the same time, always the two opposite each other, and there wasn't much room where the open doors met.

  Two guards in each cell, two guards outside to watch the prisoners who were swearing, mouthing off, threatening.

  He watched as the bedclothes were pulled off and shaken out, the wardrobe tipped forward and every shoe emptied, every sock turned inside out, the pile of six library books on the bedside table flicked through, several meters of floorboards taken up, pockets and seams on his trousers and jackets and tops pulled open at the stitching and the barking dogs let in and lifted up ro the ceiling and the lamp and the curtain rail when there was chaos on the linoleum floor.

  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?

  One more floorboard, under the sink.

  And behind the bedside lamp, the small hole in the wall for the wall plug.

  "Everything all right? You found anything? No? What a shame. You'll have to go jerk-off in some other cell. Or d'you want me to help you?"

  The guy opposite laughed. The guy beside him banged on his door and hissed keep doing them up the ass, Hoffmann.

  They had heard.

  Piet Hoffmann sat down on the edge of the bunk when they locked the door again and went on to the next cell. There was half a cigarette under a pair of boxer shorts in the mess under the bedside table; he lit up and lay down.

  Ten minutes more.

  He smoked and scoured the ceiling, then the dogs began to bark. "What the fuck, fucking hell, it's not mine, for fuck's sake!"

  The Greek in Cell 2 had a piercing voice, the kind that opened locked cell doors.

  "What the fuck, that- you've planted that, you fucking bastard screws, I'm going to-"

  One of the security guards had lifted up the black dog that was now frantically pawing above the window behind the curtain rail. The plastic bag had been taped to the wall and contained fourteen grams of high quality amphetamine. The Greek was escorted down the corridor and out of the unit, shaking and swearing, and would be transported to Kumla or Hall the next day to serve the rest of a long sentence that just got longer. At roughly the same time, two more plastic bags with the same amount of amphetamine were found in two cells on the top and bottom floors of

  Block H and three inmates in all would now be spending their last night in Aspsås.

  Piet Hoffmann lay on the bed and could smile for the first time since he'd been inside the high walls.

  Right now.

  Right now, we've taken over.

  Wednesday

  He had slept heavily for nearly four hours when it was darkest outside the barred windows and once the Finn two cells away had presumably calmed down. The jangling of keys had penetrated his brain and prevented him from sleeping every time the bastard rang the bell and demanded attention. The unit hadn't settled until a couple of the other prisoners had threatened a riot the next time a Finnish finger played with the bell,

  Piet Hoffmann pressed his back against the wall. An anxious glance at the pillow under the covers and the chair in the threshold and the sock between the door and its frame. His protection, exactly the same as yesterday and as tomorrow, two and a half seconds if anyone knew and attacked at the only time of day when the guards couldn't see or hear.

  One minute past seven. Nineteen minutes left. Then he would go out, have a shower, and eat breakfast with the others.

  He had taken the first step. He had felled the three main dealers in Aspsås prison with forty-two grams of 30 percent manufactured amphetamine. Warsaw and the deputy CEO had already received the reports they needed and opened a bottle of 2ubrOwka, raised a glass to the next stage.

  Eight minutes left.

  His breathing was measured, every muscle tensed, death didn't come knocking.

  Today he was going to take the next step. For Wojtek, the first grams to the first customers and the rumor that there was a new supplier in one of Sweden's hardest prisons. For the Swedish police, more information about supplies, delivery dates, and distribution channels until the operation had been built up enough for it to be destroyed-days or weeks waiting for the moment when the organization had full control but hadn't yet expanded to the next prison, when an informant's knowledge was sufficient to reach the very heart of the organization back in a black building on ul. Ludwika Idzikowskiego in Warsaw.

  Hoffmann looked at the alarm clock that was ticking too loud. Twenty past seven. He moved the chair, made his bed and after a while opened the door to a sleepy corridor. Stefan and Karol Tomasz smiled at him as he passed the kitchen and breakfast table. The prison bus usually came with any new prisoners ar
ound this time and it was obvious that someone who was called the Greek was now sitting on one of the evil-smelling seats with a couple of guys from Block H opposite him and presumably they weren't saying much to each other as they looked out of the windows and tried to understand what the fuck had actually happened.

  He had a hot shower, washing away the tension of twenty minutes behind a cell door ready to fight and flee. He looked in the part of the mirror that wasn't steamed up yet at someone who was unshaven and whose hair was a bit too long-leave the razor in his pocket, the salt and pepper stubble would stay where it was today.

  The cleaning cart was in a cupboard just outside the main door to the unit.

  A metal frame with a black garbage bag, hard rolls of considerably smaller white trash bags, a small brush with a wobbly dustpan, a smelly plastic bucket, small bits of material that he assumed were used for washing the windows, and at the bottom some unperfumed detergent that he had never seen before.

  "Hoffmann."

  The principal prison officer with piercing eyes was sitting in the aquarium with the wardens when he passed the big glass panes.

  "First day?"

  "First day."

  "You have to wait at every locked door. Look up at every camera. And if and when central security decides to let you through, you do it as fast as possible in the few seconds that it's open."

  "Anything else?"

  "I looked through your papers yesterday. You've got… now, what was it?… ten years. I don't know, Hoffmann, but with a bit of luck that should be enough time for you to learn how to clean properly."

  The first locked door was at the start of the underground passage. He stopped the cart, looked up at the camera, waited for the clicking sound and then went on through. The air was damp and he felt chilled as he walked under the prison yard; he had been escorted through a similar passage several times in the year he was at Österåker: to the hospital unit, or the gym, or the kiosk where every kronor earned could be exchanged for shaving cream and soap. He stopped in front of each door, nodded at the watchful cameras and then hurried through while the door was open-he wanted to attract as little attention as possible.

  "Hey you!"

  He had nodded at a group of prisoners from the other side of the prison on their way to their various workplaces when one of them turned around, looked at him.

  "Yeah?"

  A druggie. Skinny as hell, evasive eyes, feet that found it hard to stand still.

  "I heard- I want to buy. Eight g."

  Stefan and Karol Tomasz had done a good job.

  A big prison is a small place when messages pass through walls. "Two."

  "Two?"

  "You can get two. This afternoon. In the blind spot."

  "Two? Fuck, I need at least-"

  "That's all you'll get. This time around."

  The skinny prick was waving his long arms when Hoffmann turned his back and carried on down the wide passage.

  He would stand there. His body shaking, counting the minutes until he

  got that feeling that made this all bearable. He would buy his two g and he

  would inject them with a dirty syringe in the first available toilet.

  Piet Hoffmann walked away slowly and tried not to laugh.

  Only a few hours to go.

  Then he would have taken over all drug dealing in Aspsås prison.

  The lights in the homicide corridor were strong and flickered every now and then. An irritating brightness that blinded you, combined with a jarring, whirring sound every time they flickered. The two strip lights by the vending machines were worst. Fredrik Göransson could still feel the dread of yesterday in his body; it had taken him all afternoon and evening, a night's sleep and some time after he had woken to realize that the visit from Grens had sparked a gnawing, consuming feeling that would not go away, no matter how hard he tried. Prioritizing infiltration inside prison walls over and above a murder investigation was not a good solution. He had sat at the table in Rosenbad and weighed it against control over the Polish mafia and had chosen to restrict criminal expansion.

  "Göransson."

  That bloody voice.

  "I want to talk to you, Göransson."

  He had never liked it.

  "Morning, Ewert."

  Ewert Grens limped more noticeably now-either that or the corridor walls just amplified the hard sound of a healthy leg meeting a concrete floor.

  "The firearms register."

  Whatever it is that takes up so much room.

  Fredrik Göransson avoided the heavy hands that fumbled for plastic cups and the coffee machine buttons beside him.

  There's no room here again.

  "You're standing too close."

  "I'm not going to move again."

  "If you want an answer, you're going to have to."

  Ewert Grens stayed where he was.

  "721018-0010. Three Radom pistols and four hunting rifles." The name that was still blinking on his screen.

  "Yes, what about it?"

  "I want to know how someone with his criminal record was granted a firearms license for work."

  "I'm not sure what you're getting at."

  "Assaulting a police officer. Attempted murder."

  The plastic cup was full. Grens tasted the warm liquid, gave a satisfied nod and pressed the button for another.

  "I don't get it, Göransson."

  I get it, Grens.

  He has a firearms license because he is not violent and is not a classified psychopath and does not need to be branded dangerous and has not been convicted of attempted murder.

  Because the database entries that you've seen are a tool, fake.

  "I'll look into it. If it's important."

  Grens tested the second cup, looked just as happy and started to walk away, slowly.

  "It is important. I want to know who issued that license. And why." It was me.

  "I'll do what I can."

  "I need it today. He's in for questioning first thing tomorrow morning." Chief Superintendent Göransson stood where he was under the flickering, whirring light as Grens walked away.

  He shouted after the detective who had demanded answers.

  "And the others?"

  Grens stopped without turning round.

  "Which others?"

  "You had three names when you came to me yesterday."

  "I'm dealing with those two today. This bastard is doing time already, so I know where I've got him, he'll be there tomorrow too."

  Too close.

  The ungainly body carrying a plastic cup in each hand limped off down the corridor and disappeared into an office.

  Grens had been standing too close.

  The toilet bowl was yellow from piss and the sink was full of wet tobacco and cigarette butts with no filter. The unscented detergent didn't even remove the top layer of dirt. He scrubbed for a long time with the brush and then with the scouring cloth, but they only slid over the worn porcelain surface. The toilet outside the door to the workshop was small and used by people who pissed outside the bowl in the short breaks they could get from the work they hated, a couple of minutes' respite from a punishment that was never clearer than when you were standing by a machine that drilled small holes for screws at the bottom of a lamppost hatch.

  Piet Hoffmann went into the big room and greeted the same faces that he had the day before. He wiped over all the workbenches and shelves, washed the floor around the diesel barrel, emptied the bins, cleaned the large window that faced the church. Every now and then he'd glance over at the small office behind the glass wall and the two guards sitting there. He was waiting for them to get up and do their round of the workshop, which they had to do every half an hour.

  "Is it you?"

  He was big, hair in a long ponytail and a beard that made him look much older than his-Hoffmann guessed-twenty years.

  "Yes."

  He was working on the press, big hands holding metal that would be shaped into rectangular hatc
hes-he could do a couple a minute if he didn't stop to look out the window.

  "One g. For today. Every day."

  This afternoon."

  "Block H."

  "We've got a man there."

  "Michal?"

  "Yes. You get it off him and pay him."

  Hoffmann took his time. He wiped and scrubbed for an hour or more-it was a good way of getting to know the room and working out the distance from the window to the pillars and noting the position of all the surveillance cameras, to know more than everyone else, to be able to control every situation, the difference between life and death. The guards got up from their chairs and left the office and he hurried in with his cart to wipe over an empty desk and an equally empty can, careful to stand with his back to the glass wall and workshop the whole time. He only needed a couple of seconds, the razorblade was in his pocket and he switched it to the top drawer of the desk in an empty space between the pens and paperclips. A new bag in the can, still with his back to the glass, then he went out, took the elevator down to the passage with four locked doors to the administration block.

  His body felt itchy and his suit was too tight over the chest. He loosened his tie a touch and ran even faster down the corridor and through the door into the larger building that had swallowed the surrounding buildings and now constituted the greater part of a block dedicated to police operations.

  Fredrik Göransson had sweat on his cheeks, neck, back.

  Piet Hoffmann. Paula.

  Ewert Grens was on his way there, to Aspsås prison, had already booked the time and room. He would only have to question Hoffmann for a couple of minutes, no more, before Hoffmann would lean over the table, ask Grens to switch off the recorder and then burst out laughing and explain that you can go home now, we're working for the same side, for Christ's sake, I'm here working for one of your colleagues and it was your bosses, in that room in the Government Offices, who chose to overlook an execution in a flat in the center so that I could carry on my infiltration here, on the inside.