Three Seconds

by Anders Roslund

  Göransson stepped out from the lift and into a room without knocking on the door and without any consideration to the hand that was holding a telephone receiver and the arm than waved that he should wait outside until the call was finished. He sank down into one of the sofas and tugged absent mindedly at his increasingly red throat. The national police commissioner asked if he could call the person on the other end of the phone back and finished the conversation, looking at a person who was a stranger to him.

  "Ewert Grens."

  His forehead was moist and his eyes were darting around.

  The national police commissioner got up from the desk and walked over to a cart filled with big glasses and small bottles of mineral water. He opened one and poured it over two ice cubes, hoping that it would be sufficiently cool to calm the man down.

  "He's on his way there. He's going to question him. It's not good… it's… we have to burn him."

  "Fredrik?"

  "We have to-"

  "Fredrik, look at me. Exactly what are you talking about?"

  "Grens. He's going to question Hoffmann tomorrow. At the prison, in one of the visiting rooms."

  "Here. Take the glass. Have some more to drink."

  "Don't you understand? We have to burn him."

  There were people at every desk in the administration block. He started with the narrow corridor outside, cleaned and scrubbed it until the gray linoleum almost sparkled. Then he waited until one at a time they signaled that he could come in and empty the can and dust the shelves and desk. The rooms were small and anonymous and all looked out over the prison yard. He saw groups of prisoners he didn't know out there, cigarettes in hand as they sat down in the sun to daydream, some with a football on their lap, a couple walking around the track alongside the inner wall. Only one door was shut and he passed it at regular intervals, hoping that it would be open enough for him to look in, and a couple of hours later, it was the only room that remained.

  He knocked, waited.

  "Yes?"

  The prison governor didn't recognize him from yesterday.

  "Hoffmann. I'm here to do the cleaning, I thought-"

  "You'll have to wait. Until I'm ready. Clean the other rooms in the meantime."

  "I have."

  Lennart Oscarsson had already closed the door. But Piet Hoffmann had seen what he wanted to see over his shoulder. The desk and the vases of tulips. The buds that had started to open.

  He sat down on a chair near the door, with one hand on the cart. He looked over at the door at shorter and shorter intervals. He was starting to get impatient, it was all in place, now all he needed to do was take the second step.

  Knock out all existing players.

  Take over.

  "You there."

  The door was open. Oscarsson was looking at him.

  "It's fine to go in now."

  Oscarsson was on his way to the neighboring office, a woman who according to the sign on her door was something to do with finance. Piet Hoffmann nodded and went in, positioned the cart by the desk and waited. One minute, two minutes. Oscarsson had still not come back, his voice intertwined with the woman's when they laughed at something.

  He leaned forward toward the bouquets. The buds had opened enough, not completely open, but enough for fingers to pluck out the cut-down, knotted condoms that contained three grams of chemical amphetamine, made with flower fertiliser rather than acetone in a factory in Siedlce, hence the strong smell of tulips.

  Piet Hoffmann emptied fifteen buds in one go, dropped the condoms into the black garbage bag on his cart, listened to the voices in the next room.

  He smiled.

  He would soon have completed Wojtek's first delivery to the closed market.

  Göransson had drunk two glasses of mineral water and had painstakingly chewed each ice cube, a crunching sound that was not nice to listen to.

  "I don't understand, Fredrik. Burn who?"

  "Hoffmann."

  The national police commissioner found it difficult to sit still. He had felt it already when his colleague had walked straight into the room: something that he couldn't put his finger on had barged its way in.

  "Would you like coffee?"

  "Cigarette."

  "But you only smoke in the evening."

  "Not today, I don't."

  The packet of cigarettes was unopened and lying at the back of the bottom drawer of his desk.

  "It's been there for about two years. I don't know if you can smoke them anymore, but it was never my intention to offer them to anyone. They were just meant to be there after every cup of coffee, when there's a yawning hole in your stomach, just as proof that I hadn't started again."

  He opened the window as the first puff of smoke drifted over the desk, "I think it's better if we keep it closed."

  The national police commissioner looked at the man who was drawing hard on the cigarette and was right, so he closed the window again and breathed in a smell that was so familiar.

  "I don't think you understand-we haven't got much time. Grens will sit down opposite him and listen to the consequences of a meeting we should never have had. Grens will-"

  "Fredrik?"

  "Yes?"

  "You're here. And I'm listening. Just calm yourself down now and give me the full picture."

  Fredrik Göransson smoked until there was nothing left to smoke, stubbed out the cigarette, lit a new one and smoked it halfway down. He went back to the sinking feeling by the coffee machine and a detective superintendent who was following up a name that had popped up on the periphery of an investigation-someone who had worked for the official Wojtek and who, according to the authorities' records, had been convicted of aggravated assault and still been given a gun license, a name that was now serving a long sentence for drug offenses and tomorrow morning would be questioned in connection with a murder at Västmannagatan 79.

  "Ewert Grens."

  "Yes."

  "Siw Malmkvist?"

  "That's the one."

  "The sort who doesn't give up."

  The sort that never gives up.

  "It'll be a disaster. Do you hear, Kristian, a disaster?"

  "It won't be a disaster."

  "Grens doesn't let go. Once he's questioned Hoffmann. it'll be us, the ones who legitimized all this, protected him."

  The national police commissioner didn't say anything, didn't break out in a sweat, but he now understood the anxiety that had entered the room, the kind of anxiety that had to be chased off immediately so that it couldn't grow.

  "Wait a moment."

  He got up from the sofa and went to the phone, flipped to the back of a black diary and then after a while dialed the number he had been looking for.

  The ringing tone when he got through was louder than normal and could even be heard from where Göransson was sitting on the sofa… three rings four rings five rings… until a deep man's voice answered and the national police commissioner pulled the mouthpiece in closer.

  "pal? It's Kristian. Are you alone?"

  The deep voice was a bit too far away, just a faint murmur, but the national police commissioner looked satisfied, gave a brief nod.

  "I need your help. We have a mutual problem."

  Piet Hoffmann stood in front of the first locked security door in the passage between the administration block and Block G. The camera moved, central security changing the angle and zooming in on a bearded face of around thirty-five that was studied on the monitor, perhaps also compared with a photo in the prison files, a prisoner who had arrived a couple of days ago and was still just one of a whole host of criminals who had been given long sentences.

  He had been careful when emptying the trash to make sure that the contents lay on top of the big trash liner on the cleaning cart, so that anyone passing who looked into it would see crumpled-up envelopes and empty plastic cups, not fifty condoms and one hundred fifty grams of amphetamine. He had used the forty-two grams that were in the four library books to knock out the t
hree main dealers in the prison and would now use what had been hidden in the buds of fifty yellow tulips for the first sales from the prison's new dealer. In a few hours, all the prisoners in all the units would know that plenty of chemical drugs were now being sold and distributed by a new prisoner called Piet Hoffmann somewhere in Block G. He wasn't going to sell more than two grams to any of them first time round, no matter how much they begged or threatened; Wojtek's maiden fix had to be divided between seventy-five imprisoned drug addicts-their first debt with a ruler who would definitely demand it back. He would sell more in a few days once he had taken over the two prison wardens in Block F who were paid by the Greek to regularly smuggle in large amounts.

  The clicking sound, central security had finished checking him and opened the door for a few seconds. Hoffmann went through, turned right up the first side passage and stopped after a few long strides, about two and a half meters in. A five-meter blind spot between two cameras. He looked around, no one coming from Block H, no one leaving the administration block.

  He rummaged around in the trash bag until he had fished out fifty condoms and emptied the contents into a black plastic bag on the hard floor. A small teaspoon from one of the cups in the governor's office held exactly two grams if the powder was level; he divided up the drug into seventy-five small piles.

  He worked fast but meticulously, ripping the small white bags into strips and wrapping the two-gram piles in plastic; seventy-five portions at the bottom of the big trash can liner covered by the contents of the admin cans.

  "We said eight g, didn't we?"

  He had heard him coming, a druggie's steps, feet dragging on concrete. He knew that he would stand there and fawn.

  "Eight, that's right isn't it? We said eight?"

  Hoffmann shook his head in irritation.

  "What's so bloody hard to understand? You'll get two."

  Every customer would be able to get at least one hit-today once again journey to a world that was artificial and therefore so much easier to live in. But no one would get enough to begin with to be able to sell on, no other dealers, no competition, the drugs would be controlled from a cell in the left-hand corridor, G2.

  "Fucking hell, I-"

  "You'll fucking shut up if you want anything at all."

  The skinny junkie was shaking even more than he had been in the morning, his feet moving constantly, his eyes everywhere except for the face they were talking to. He was silent, held his hand out until he was given a small white ball and started to walk off before he'd even put it in his pocket.

  "I think you've forgotten something."

  The skinny prick had a twitch by his eyes, the spasms increased and his cheeks rippled unrhythmically.

  "I'll fix the money."

  "Fifty kronor a gram."

  The twitch stopped for a couple of seconds.

  "Fifty?"

  Hoffmann smiled at his confusion. He could ask anything from three hundred to four hundred fifty. Now when there were no other suppliers, maybe even six hundred. But he wanted the news to pass through all the walls, and then they could raise it, when all the customers were on one list, the one that belonged to the prison's sole supplier.

  "Fifty."

  "Fuck, fuck. then I want twenty g."

  "Two."

  "Or thirty, maybe even-"

  "You're in debt now."

  "I'll fix it."

  "We keep an eye on our debts."

  "Don't worry, man, I mean I've always-"

  "Good. We'll find a solution then."

  Faint steps thumping down the passage from Block H that quickly got louder. They could both hear them and the druggie had already started to walk away.

  "Do you work?"

  "Study."

  "Where?"

  The skinny guy was sweating and his cheeks were twitching and rippling.

  "Fuck, does it-"

  "Where?"

  "Classroom F3."

  "You can order from Stefan from now on. And collect from him."

  Two locked doors and the elevator up to Block G. He pushed the cart into the cleaning cupboard that stank of damp cloths, stuffed eleven of the small plastic balls into his pockets and left the rest under the crumpled documents. In an hour they would be passed to other hands in the various prison buildings and in each unit there would be consumers who knew about the new supplier and the quality and the price, and he and Wojtek would have taken over, the lot.

  They were waiting for him.

  Some in the corridor, a couple in the TV corner, evasive eyes full of hunger.

  He had eleven sales in his pockets for a unit that was like all the others: five were going to pay from cash that could be counted in millions, earnings from criminal activities that society seldom managed to stop; six didn't have enough money to pay for the socks on their feet and would end up working for Wojtek on the outside to pay off their debt-they were an investment, criminal labor and he owned them.

  Fredrik Göransson sat on one of the national police commissioner's sofas and listened to the voice on the other end of the telephone talk loudly, the initial low murmur had become clear words in short bursts.

  "Mutual problem?"

  "Yes."

  "This early in the morning?"

  The deep man's voice sighed and the national police commissioner continued.

  "It's about Hoffmann."

  "Well?"

  "He's going to be called in for questioning this morning, in one of the visiting rooms. A detective superintendent from city police who's investigating Västmannagatan 79."

  He waited for an answer, a reaction, anything. He got nothing.

  "That interview, Pål, is not going to happen. Under no circumstances are you going to let Hoffmann meet a policeman as part of the preliminary investigation in connection with that address."

  Silence again and when the voice responded, it was once more a low murmur that couldn't be heard from a few meters away.

  "I can't say anymore. Not here, not now. Apart from that you've got to fix it."

  The national police commissioner was sitting on the edge of the desk and it was starting to be uncomfortable. He straightened his back and there was a crunching sound from somewhere in his hip.

  "Pål I just need a couple of days. A week maybe. I want you to do this for me."

  He put the phone down and leaned forward, a few more crunches, sounded like his lower back.

  "We've got ourselves a few days. Now we have to take action. In order to avoid the same situation happening again in seventy-two or ninety-six hours."

  They shared what was left in the coffeepot. Göransson lit another cigarette.

  The meeting a couple of weeks earlier in a beautiful room with a view of Stockholm had mutated into something new Code Paula was no longer an operation that the Swedish police had worked on and waited for for several years, it now also involved a criminal counterpart who they did not know much about and who had knowledge that would have consequences far beyond that oblong meeting table if it were to be passed on.

  "So, Erik Wilson is abroad?"

  Göransson nodded.

  "And Hoffmann's Wojtek contacts in the unit, do we know who they are?"

  Chief Superintendent Göransson nodded again, leaned back a touch and for the first time since he sat down, the fabric felt almost comfortable.

  The national police commissioner looked at his face, which seemed calmer.

  "You're right."

  He lifted up the empty coffeepot to see if there was anything left. He was thirsty: he'd never really understood all the fuss about water with bubbles, but poured himself a glass as it was there and, because the room was full of cigarette smoke, found it refreshing.

  "If we let it our who Hoffmann is? If the members of an organization find out there's an informant among them-what the organization does then with that knowledge is not our problem. We will not and cannot be responsible for other people's actions."

  One more glass, more bubbles.


  "Like you said, we'll burn him."

  Thursday

  He had dreamed about the hole. For four nights in a row, the straight edges in the dust on the shelf behind his desk had become a yawning, bottomless hole and no matter where he was or how much he tried to get away, he was drawn toward the black hole and then just as he started to fall, he woke up breathless on the floor behind the corduroy sofa, his back slippery with sweat.

  It was half past four and already warm and bright in the courtyard of Kronoberg. Ewert Grens went out into the corridor and over to the small pantry, where a blue hand towel was hanging from the tap. He wet it and went back to the office and the hole that was much smaller in reality. So many hours, such a large part of his day for thirty-five years had revolved around a time that no longer existed. With the wet cloth he wiped over the long, hard edges that marked where the cassette recorder he had been given for his twenty-fifth birthday had stood, then the considerably shorter edges from the cassettes and the photo, even the squares that had been the two loudspeakers, which were kind of beautiful in their clarity.

  And now there wasn't even dust.

  He moved a cactus plant from the windowsill, the files from the floor-the majority of which contained long-since completed preliminary investigations that should have been filed somewhere-and filled every tiny space on the now empty shelves so that he wouldn't need to fall anymore; the hole had gone and if there wasn't a hole, there couldn't be a bottomless pit.

  A cup of black coffee around which the air was still full of swirling dust particles looking for a new home didn't taste as good as usual, as if the dust had dissolved in the brown liquid; it even looked a shade lighter.

  He left early-he wanted straight answers and prisoners who were still sleepy were often less mouthy, not so insolent and scornful; interviews were either a power struggle or an attempt to gain confidence and he didn't have time to build up trust. He drove out of the city too fast and along the first kilometers of the E4, then suddenly slowed when he passed Haga and the large cemetery on the left, hesitated before continuing straight on and accelerating again. He could turn off the road on the way back, drive slowly past the people with plants and flowers in one hand and a watering can in the other.