Anders Roslund - Three Seconds

The longer one at number five with Paula's version of the murder in Västmannagatan and his report from the meeting in Warsaw, and the considerably shorter one at number four when a plastic bag containing a bloody shirt changed hands.

Wilson looked over at the locked cupboard by the wall on the other side of the room.

It was in there. A murderer's battledress.

It wouldn't stay there much longer.

The steps out in the corridor had disappeared, as had the ones in his head. He looked at the computer screen.

Name Piet Hoffmann

Personal ID number 721018-002.0 Number of hits 75

His most important tool over the past nine years for developing the best infiltrator he'd ever heard of.

ASPEN, the criminal intelligence database.

He had started as soon as Piet was released from Österåker, his first day of freedom and first day as a newly recruited infiltrator. Erik Wilson had himself met him at the gate, driven him the fifty kilometers to Stockholm in his own car and when he had dropped him off, he carried on straight to the police headquarters and recorded the first observation of 721018-0010 in ASPEN, intelligence that from that moment would be available to every police officer who logged on to find out more about Piet Hoffmann. A concise, but accurate account of how, on his release, the suspect was met at the gates of Österåker by a car and two previous convicts and known criminals with confirmed links to the Yugoslavian mafia.

Over the years he had successively made him more dangerous observed near the property that was raided in connection with suspected arms dealing and more violent observed fifteen minutes before the murder in Ostling in the company of the suspect, Markovi? and more ruthless. Wilson had varied his formulations and the degree of misinformation, and with each new observation had added to the myth of Piet Hoffmann's potency until, according to a database on a computer, he was one of the most dangerous criminals in Sweden.

He listened again. More footsteps out in the corridor. The sound got clearer, louder, until they passed his door and slowly disappeared again.

He tilted the screen up.

KNOWN.

In two weeks' time, Piet would be given a long prison sentence and then take over enough power to control the drug supply, the kind of force that was treated with respect inside.

DANGEROUS.

Which was why Erik Wilson now wrote this in capital letters.

ARMED.

The next colleague to check Piet Hoffmann in the database would now be presented with a special page and a special code that was only used for a handful of criminals.

KNOWN DANGEROUS ARMED

Any patrol with access to this truth, which was their own intelligence after all, would know him to be extremely dangerous and confront him as such, and this reputation would then accompany him in the secure transport that would transfer him from custody to prison.

He held the mobile phone to his ear. According to the automatic voice that spoke every ten seconds, it was exactly half past twelve when the dark door with HOLM on the letter box opened from inside and Piet Hoffmann walked into a plastic-sheeted flat on the second floor. The parquet floor was uneven and creaked, probably due to water damage.

Number two.

Högalidsgatan 38 and Heleneborgsgaran 9.

Erik Wilson had made some instant coffee, as he usually did, and as normal, Hoffmann did not drink it. A soft sofa in what must have been the TV room, transparent plastic sheeting to protect the fabric during the two-month renovation that rustled when they moved and after a while clung to the film of sweat on his back.

"We'll use this."

Piet Hoffmann knew that they didn't have much time.

He could see it in Erik's eyes, for the first time, as they darted around the room, restless and unfocused. The man who had been his contact for nine years and who had never laughed or cried was stressed, and therefore doing what stressed people often do, trying to hide it, thus making it all the more obvious.

Hoffmann opened a small tin that once had been manufactured and sold for storing tea leaves, but which now contained the yellow, cohesive substance smelling strongly of tulips.

"Blossom."

Erik Wilson carefully scraped off a piece with the plastic knife that Hoffmann gave him, put it to his tongue, felt it burning, and knew he would get a blister there.

"Bloody strong. Two parts grape sugar?"

"Yep."

"How much?"

"Three kilos."

"Enough for a fast-track trial and a long sentence in a high security prison."

Piet Hoffmann pressed down the lid and put the tin back in his inner pocket. The other eighty-one kilos were still in the fan heater in the loft of the turn-of-the-century building on Vasagatan. He would later describe to Wilson where and how to find it. But not yet. It still had to be cut one more time, his own share, which he sometimes did, sold it on.

"I'm going to need three days to knock out all other business. Wojtek will get the reports they need to continue. Then we'll do what we set out to do. Eliminate."

Erik Wilson should have felt calmer, happier, curious. His best infiltrator was on his way to prison, exactly where both the Swedish police and Wojtek had planned for him to be, and he would start and end a mafia branch expansion. He wasn't used to the stress and he saw that Piet had clocked it.

"I'm trying to solve Västmannagatan in the usual way. A report to the head of homicide and the secret locker. But… it's not enough this time. Murder, Piet! We'll have to take it higher than police headquarters. We have to go to Rosenbad. And you're going to come too."

"You know that's not possible."

"You don't have any choice."

"Erik, for fuck's sake, I can't just stroll in through the main entrance of the Government Offices, together with the police and politicians!"

"I'll collect you from 2B."

Piet Hoffmann sat on the sofa that was protected with plastic sheeting that was sticking to his back and slowly shook his head.

"If anyone sees me… I'm dead."

"In the same way that you'll be dead the minute anyone in prison discovers who you are. Only, you'll be banged up then. You need the authorities. To get out. To survive."

He left the instant coffee in the second floor flat and instead drank a dark roast coffee with warm milk in a café on the corner of Palsundsgatan, and tried to concentrate on the sound of Italian crooners and a table of giggling girls who had swapped their school lunches for a plate of cinnamon buns, and two people at a table at the back who were trying to look like poets and talking too loudly about writing, but only succeeded in being an imitation of others who talked too loud.

Erik was right. Always on your own. He had no choice. Trust no one but yourself

He put down his empty coffee cup and walked over Vasterbron accompanied by a cautious sun, paused quietly for a while by the railings, twenty-seven meters above the water, and wondered how it would feel to jump, the seconds that were all and nothing before your body slammed into the transparent surface. He phoned home and spoke to Zofia from the middle of Norr Malarstrand and, yet another lie, told her that her work was just as important as his but that he couldn't come home and hold the fort until later on tonight. He heard her raise her voice and then put the phone down when he couldn't bear to lie anymore.

The asphalt became harder the closer to the heart of the city he came.

When he walked into a multi-story garage opposite an expensive department store, the pavement on Regeringsgatan was empty despite the fact it was only early afternoon. He climbed the narrow stairs up to the first floor, moved between the parked cars in section B until he spotted the black minivan with darkened windows in the far corner by the concrete wall. He went over and tried the handle on one of the back doors. It was unlocked. He opened the door to the back seat of the abandoned car, then looked at his watch. He would have to wait ten more minutes.