Three Seconds

by Anders Roslund

  He are his hamburger outside Gustav Vasa church, then turned right into a street he had visited several times in the past few weeks, blocks of flats that were on their way to bed. He looked at himself in the glass panes of the large front door, punched in the code which he now knew off by heart and took the elevator that creaked as it reached the fourth floor.

  A new sign on the mailbox. The Polish name had been replaced. The brown wooden door was even older than his own. He looked at it, remembered the pool of blood under a head, small flags on the wall, the kitchen floor where Krantz had found traces of drugs.

  It had started here.

  The death that would force him to make a decision about more death.

  Vanadisvagen, Gavlegatan, Solnabron, he carried on through the mild night, as if someone else was walking beside him and he was just following, he thought nothing, felt nothing, not until he stopped on Solna Kyrkvag in front of an opening in the fence that was called Gate 1 and was one of ten entrances to North Cemetery.

  The expected edges in the inner pocket of his jacket.

  He had let it lie at arm's length on his desk for months; then yesterday, without knowing why, he had taken it home with him. Now he was here, holding the map in his hand.

  He wasn't even cold.

  Despite the fact that he knew it was always cold in graveyards.

  Ewert Grens followed the asphalt road that cut across large areas of green grass edged by birches, conifers, and trees he didn't know the names of A hundred and fifty acres, thirty thousand graves. He had avoided looking at them-rather the branches on the trees than the gray stones that marked loss-but was now looking at some older graves, those who were buried as titles, not people: a postal inspector, a stationmaster, a widow. He went on past large engraved stones that housed entire families who wanted always to be close, past other large stones that rose up stern and proud from the ground-slightly more important than the rest, even in death-to stare at him.

  Twenty-nine years.

  He had several times a day for most of his adult life lived through a few tainted moments-she falls out of the police van, he doesn't manage to stop in time, the back wheels roll over her head-and sometimes, if he had forgotten to think about it, if he realized that several hours had passed since the last time, he had been forced to think about it a bit longer and a bit more, mostly about the red that had been blood that poured from the head on his lap.

  He couldn't do it anymore.

  He looked at the trees and the graves and even the memorial garden over there, but it didn't help, no matter how much he reprimanded himself, he could not focus on the flickering in her eyes or the spasms in her legs.

  What you're frightened of has already happened.

  He looked around, suddenly in a rush.

  He cut across the graves in an area that according to the signs was called Section I5B: beautiful, understated gravestones, people who had died with dignity and didn't need to make such a bloody fuss afterwards.

  Section 16A. He lengthened his stride. Section 19E. He was out of breath, sweating.

  A green watering can on a stand, he filled it with water from the tap close by, carried it with him as he hurried on and the asphalt changed to gravel.

  Section 19B.

  He attempted to stand still again.

  He had never been here. He had tried, he had, but never managed. It had taken him one and a half years to walk a couple of kilometers.

  The failing light made it hard to see more than two headstones in front.

  He leaned forward so he could read more easily, each new sign marking a burial place.

  Grave 601.

  Grave 602.

  He was shaking, finding it difficult to breathe. For a moment he was about to turn around.

  Grave 603.

  Some overturned earth, a temporary flowerbed with something green, a small white wooden cross, nothing more.

  He lifted the watering can and watered the bush without flowers.

  She's lying there.

  The girl who holds his hand and forces him to walk close to her as they wander through the Stockholm dawn, the girl who struggles beside him on badly waxed skis through the snow-covered chestnut trees in Vasaparken, the girl who moves in with a young man to the flat on Sveavägen.

  She is the one who is lying there.

  Not the woman who sits in a wheelchair in a nursing home, the one who doesn't recognize me.

  He didn't cry, he had already done that. He smiled. I didn't kill him.

  I didn't kill you.

  What I am frightened of has already happened.

  PART FIVE

  A Day Later

  He liked the brown bread, thick slices with seeds all around the crust, it filled him and crunched a little when he chewed. Black coffee and orange juice that had been pressed as he watched. A couple of minutes from the flat, on the corner of Odengatan and Döbelnsgatan, Ewert Grens had eaten breakfast there a couple of times a week for as long as he could remember.

  He had slept for nearly four hours, in his own bed, in the big flat and without dreaming about running and someone in pursuit. He had known it would be a good night as soon as he had shut the door, sat down in the large kitchen, and looked out of the window, gathered up all the files and papers that were still lying on the table, stood singing in the warm shower for a bit too long, listened to the voices of night radio.

  Grens paid for his breakfast and four cinnamon buns, asked if they could be put in a bag, then a quick walk alongside the cars that stood waiting for each other in the dense morning traffic, Sveavägen to Sergels Torg, Drottninggatan to Rosenbad and the Government Offices.

  The security guard, who was young and probably new, studied his ID and compared his name for a second and third time with the one given in the meeting book.

  "The Ministry of Justice?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you know where her office is?"

  "I was here a couple of nights ago, but we've never met."

  The camera was in the middle of the corridor at face height. Ewert Grens looked into it, just as a police informant had done a few weeks ago, smiled at the lens, at roughly the same time that one of the security staff opened the door to a control room several floors down in the huge government building and discovered that the metal shelf with numbered security tapes was empty in two places.

  They were waiting for him by the large table at the far end of the room. A half-empty porcelain cup in front of each of them.

  It was eight in the morning and they had already been there a while; they had taken him seriously.

  He looked at them, still not a word.

  "You asked for a meeting. Well, you've got a meeting. We presume it won't take long. We've all got other planned meetings to go to."

  Ewers Grens looked at the three faces, one at a time, long enough for it to be just too long. The two first faces, if they were calm, if they were pretending to be. Göransson, on the other hand, had a shiny forehead, his eyes kept blinking, his lips creased as he pressed them together hard.

  "I've brought some cinnamon buns."

  He put the white paper bag on the table.

  "For Christ's sake, Grens!"

  Hoffmann had had a family.

  Two children who would grow up without a father.

  "Does anyone want one? I bought one for each of us."

  What if they looked him up in years to come? What if they asked questions, what would he answer?

  It was my job?

  It was my damned duty?

  Your father's life was not as valuable to me and society as that of the prison warden he was threatening?

  "No? Well, I think I'll take one. Göransson, can you pass me a cup?" He drank the coffee, ate a cinnamon bun, and one more.

  "Two cinnamon buns left. If anyone changes their mind."

  He looked at them again, one at a time as before. The state secretary met his gaze-she was calm, even a faint smile. The national police commissioner sat completely
still, his eyes turned to the window, the Royal Palace roof and Storkyrkan tower. Göransson stared at the table. It was difficult to tell, but it looked like his shiny forehead was covered in droplets.

  Ewert Grens opened the briefcase and produced a laptop.

  "Good machine this. Sven took a similar one with him to the USA. He was there yesterday."

  With fumbling fingers, he slipped in the CD, opened the file and a black square filled the screen.

  'A lot of keys. But I'm quite good at it now. And by the way, it was Erik Wilson that Sven went to meet. With his laptop."

  The security cameras were situated in two places. One about a meter above the glass security desk, the other in the corridor on the second floor. The footage he had seized late in the evening a couple of days ago was jumpy and slightly blurred, but they could all see what it was.

  Five people entering one of the rooms in the Government Offices within a short space of time.

  "Do you recognize them?"

  Grens pointed at the picture.

  "You might even recognize which room they're going into?"

  He stopped the film, a still frame on the screen, someone standing with his back to the camera, arms outstretched, someone else behind him, hands on his back.

  "The last thing that happens. The person in front here, with his arms out, is a man with a criminal record who, when this was recorded, worked as an informant for the city police. The man searching him, with his hands on the informant's back, is a chief superintendent."

  Grens looked at Göransson, slumped at the table.

  He paused, no eye contact.

  "The laptop belongs to the police. But this is mine."

  He had his hand in the outside pocket of the briefcase and was now holding a CD player.

  "I was given it by Ågestam nearly five years ago after we'd had a slight altercation. It's a modern one, the kind that young people have. Don't tell him, but I haven't actually used it much. Until a couple of weeks ago, that is. When I started listening to some interesting recordings."

  The bag of cinnamon buns was in the way, so he moved it.

  "But these I've borrowed from the property store. From a burglary in a flat in Stora Nygatan. The preliminary investigation was closed. The seized property released. No one claimed it."

  He positioned two small speakers on the table and took his time wiring them up.

  "If they're good… who knows, I might just keep them."

  Ewert Grens pressed one of the buttons.

  Chairs scraping, noise of people moving.

  "A meeting."

  He looked around the room.

  "In this room. At this table. Tenth of May at fifteen forty-nine. I'll fast forward a bit, twenty-eight minutes and twenty-four seconds."

  He turned to his line manager.

  Göransson had taken off his jacket, revealing dark stains near the armholes of his light blue shirt.

  "The person speaking. I think you'll recognize the voice."

  "You've dealt with similar cases before."

  "You let me, Sven, Hermansson, Krantz, Errfors and…"

  "Ewert-"

  "… a whole bloody bunch of policemen work for weeks on an investigation that you already had the answer to."

  Göransson looked at him for the first time. He had started to speak but Grens shook his head.

  "I'll be done soon."

  Fingers on the machine's sensitive buttons, got the right one after a while.

  "I'll fast forward some more. Twenty-two minutes and seventeen seconds. The same meeting. Another voice."

  "I don't want that to happen. You don't want that to happen. Paula doesn't have time for Västmannagatan."

  Ewert Grens looked at the national police commissioner.

  Maybe the well-polished veneer was starting to crack, it certainly felt like that: too many twitches around the eyes, hands rubbing slowly together.

  "Lie to your colleagues. Burn your employees. Give some crimes immunity so that others can be solved. If that is the future of policing… then I'm glad it's only six years until I retire."

  He didn't expect a response, adjusted the speakers so they stood face on when he turned them toward the state secretary.

  "He was sitting directly opposite you. Doesn't it feel strange?"

  "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."

  "A microphone, at about knee-height, on a person who was sitting in the same place that I am now."

  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."

  Grens lifted the small speakers, moved them even closer toward the state secretary.

  "I want to be sure that you hear what comes next."

  Her voice again, exactly where he'd interrupted her.

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

  He reached for the white paper bag, first one more cinnamon bun, then what was left of the coffee at the bottom of his cup.

  "Crime: failure to report a crime. Crime: protection of a criminal. Crime: conspiring to commit crime."

  He was anticipating that they might ask him to leave, threaten to call security, ask him what the hell he thought he was doing.

  "Crime: perjury. Crime: gross misuse of public office. Crime: forgery of documents."

  They sat still. They said nothing.

  "Perhaps you know of others?"

  Some seagulls had been circling outside the window since the meeting began.

  Their loud screeches were now the only thing to be heard.

  That, and the regular breathing of four people around a table.

  Ewert Grens stood up after a while, walked slowly across the room, first to the window and the birds, then back to the people who were no longer in a rush to get anywhere.

  "I won't carry the guilt. Not anymore. Not again."

  Three days earlier he had dared to make a decision he had dreaded throughout his working life-to fire a lethal shot at another person.

  "I was not responsible for his death."

  Last night he had dared to spend several hours in a cemetery-a modest grave that he had been more frightened of than anything else he could remember.

  "I was not responsible for her death."

  His voice, it was remarkably calm again.

  "It was not me who committed murder."

  He pointed at them, one at a time.

  "It was you. It was you. It was you."

  Another Day Later

  A couple of centimeters above the tail bone, the third or fourth vertebra, the pain was unbearable at times. He moved with care, he pedalled with his feet in the air, one at a time, then nothing could be heard and the intense pain was dulled for a while.

  He didn't notice the smell, the stench of urine and feces; in the first few hours perhaps, but that was a long time ago, not now, not anymore.

  He had kept his eyes open the first evening and night and morning, looking for what couldn't be seen, shouting voices and running feet. But he had his eyes closed all the time now, the heavy darkness. He couldn't see anything in any case.

  He was lying on square pieces of aluminum that had been welded to form a long, round pipe-he guessed about sixty centimeters in diameter, just enough room for his shoulders and if he stretched his arms up he could press his palms against the top of the pipe.

  There was still pressure on his stomach and he let go of the drops that trickled down his thighs-it felt better, eased the discomfort. He hadn't had anything to drink since the morning before he took the hostages, only the urine he managed to catch and lift to his mouth, a couple of handfuls over a hundred hours.

  He knew that a person could survive a week without wat
er, but thirst was like hosting madness and his lips and palate and throat shrivelled in the presence of dryness. He held out, just as he held out against the hunger and pain in his joints from lying so still, and against the dark that he had relaxed into once the shouting and running feet fell silent. It was the heat that had made him think about giving up a couple of times. All electricity had been turned off in connection with the smoke and fire and when the ventilation system no longer supplied fresh air, the temperature in the sealed pipe had risen and felt like a fever. In the last few hours he had just aimed at a couple of minutes at a time, but that didn't work anymore, he couldn't stand much more.

  He should have left the pipe yesterday.

  That was what he had planned: three days for the adrenaline and full alert to die down.

  But yesterday afternoon someone had opened the door, come in, and walked around in the substation. He had lain petrified and listened to the footsteps and breathing of a guard or electrician or plumber only half a meter below him. The control room for the prison's water and electricity was only checked a few times a week, he knew that, but still he waited for another twenty-four hours to be on the safe side.

  He pulled his left arm up toward his face, looked at the watch that had belonged to the elderly warden.

  Quarter to seven. Another hour to lock-up.

  Then an hour and a quarter for the staff to change shifts, when the day guards became the night guards.

  It was time.

  He checked that the scissors were still in his trouser pocket, the ones that had been in a pen holder on the desk in the workshop office and that he had cut his long hair with on the first day, his arm and hand movements restricted by the inside of the pipe, but he had plenty of time to do it and it had been a good way to forget the sound of people looking for body parts. He teased them out of his pocket again and, arm back, hit the inside of the pipe hard with the point until his fingertips felt a hole and he could slash the soft metal with the blades. He braced his body directly above the cut and pushed back, feet against the base, both hands against the sharp edges of the metal. He was bleeding heavily when the pipe finally gave way and he sank through the aluminum and fell onto the stone floor of the substation.