Anders Roslund: Three Seconds

He had bits of puke on his trousers and shirt and his spotty face was as white as the floor he was lying on.

Piet Hoffmann didn't kick him anymore. He had counted the dark objects swimming around in the milk and he didn't need anymore for the moment. He fished up the brown rubber: twenty almost-round balls. He pulled on some kitchen gloves and rinsed them under the tap, then picked off the rubber until he had twenty small capsules which he put on a porcelain plate that he had taken from the kitchen cupboard.

"There's more milk And there's more pizza. You stay here. Eat, drink and throw up. We want the rest."

The sitting room was warm, stuffy. The three men at the rectangular dark oak table were all sweating-too many clothes and too much adrenaline. He opened the door to the balcony and stood there for a moment while a cool breeze swept out all the bad air.

Piet Hoffmann spoke in Polish. The two men who had to understand what he was saying preferred it.

"He's still got eighteen hundred grams to go. Take care of it. And pay him when he's done. Four percent."

They were very similar, in their forties, dark suits that were expensive but looked cheap, shaved heads; when he stood close to them he could see an obvious halo of day-old brown hair Eyes that were devoid of joy, and neither man smiled very often. In fact, he'd never seen either of them laugh. They did what he said, disappeared into the kitchen to empty the mule who was lying there, throwing up. It was Hoffmann's shipment and none of them wanted to explain to Warsaw that a delivery had gone all wrong.

He turned to the third man at the table and spoke in Swedish for the first time. "Here are twenty capsules. Two hundred grams. That's enough for you to check it."

He was looking at someone who was tall, blond, in shape, and about the same age as he was, around thirty-five. Someone wearing black jeans, a white T-shirt and lots of silver around his fingers, wrists, and neck. Someone who'd served four years at Tidaholm for attempted murder, and twenty-seven months in Mariefred for two counts of assault. Everything fit. And yet there was something he couldn't put his finger on, like the buyer was wearing a costume, or was acting and not doing it well enough.

Piet Hoffmann watched him as he pulled a razor blade from the pocket of his black denim jacket and cut one of the capsules down the middle then leaned forward over the porcelain plate to smell the contents.

That feeling again. It was still there.

Maybe the guy sitting there, who was going to buy the lot, was just strung out. Or nervous. Or maybe that was precisely what had made Piet call Erik in the middle of the night, whatever it was that wasn't right, this intense feeling that he hadn't been able to express properly on the phone.

It smelled of flowers, tulips.

Hoffmann was sitting two chairs away but could still smell it clearly.

The buyer had chopped up the yellowish, hard mass into something that resembled powder, scooped some up on the razor blade and put it in an empty glass. He drew twenty milliliters of water into a syringe and then squirted it into the glass and onto the powder which dissolved into a clear but viscous fluid. He nodded, satisfied. It had dissolved quickly. It had turned into a clear fluid. It was amphetamine and it was as strong as the seller had promised.

"Tidaholm. Four years. That's right, isn't it?"

It had all looked professional, but it still didn't feel right.

Piet Hoffmann pulled the plate of capsules over in front of him, waiting for an answer.

"Ninety-seven to two thousand. Only in for three. Got out early for good behavior."

"Which section?" Hoffmann studied the buyer's face.

No twitching, no blinking, no other sign of nerves.

He spoke Swedish with a slight accent, maybe a neighboring country. Piet guessed Danish, possibly Norwegian. The buyer stood up suddenly, an irritated hand slightly too close to Piet's face. Everything still looked good, but it was too late. You noticed that sort of thing. He should have got pissed off much earlier, swiped that hand in front of his face right at the start: Don't you trust me, you bastard.

"You've seen the judgment already, haven't you?"

Now it was as if he was playing irritated.

"I repeat, which section?"

"C. Ninety-seven to ninety-nine."

"C. Where?"

He was already too late.

"What the fuck are you getting at?"

"Where?"

"Just C, the sections don't have numbers at Tidaholm."

He smiled.

Piet Hoffmann smiled back.

"Who else was there?"

"That'll fucking do, okay?"

The buyer was talking in a loud voice, so he would sound even more irritated, even more insulted.

Hoffmann could hear something else.

Something that sounded like uncertainty.

"Do you want to get on with business or not I was under the impression that you'd asked me here because you wanted to sell me something."

"Who else was there?"

"Skane. Mio. Josef Libanon. Virtanen. The Count. How many names do you want?"

"Who else?"

The buyer was still standing up, and he took a step toward Hoffmann. "I'm going to stop this right now."

He stood very close, the silver on his wrist and fingers flashing as he held his hand up in front of Piet Hoffmann's face.

"No more. That's enough. It's up to you whether we carry on with this or not."

"Josef Libanon was deported for life and then disappeared when he landed in Beirut three and a half months ago. Virtanen has been put away in a maximum security psychiatric unit for the past few years, unreachable and dribbling due to chronic psychosis. Mio is buried-"

The two men in expensive suits with shaved heads had heard the raised voices and opened the kitchen door.

Hoffmann waved his arm at them to indicate that they should stay put.

"Mio is buried in a sandpit near Alstaket in Varmdo, two holes in the back of his head."

There were now three people speaking a foreign language in the room. Piet Hoffmann caught the buyer looking around, looking for a way out.

"Josef Libanon, Virtanen, Mio. I'll carry on: Skane, totally pickled. He won't remember whether he did time in Tidaholm or Kumla, or even Hall for that matter. And as for the Count… the wardens in Harnosand remand cut him down from where he was hanging with one of the sheets around his neck. Your five names. You chose them well. As none of them can confirm that you did time there."

One of the men in dark suits, the one called Mariusz, stepped forward with a gun in his hand, a black Polish-made Radom, which looked new as he held it to the buyer's head. Piet Hoffmann utspokoj sir do diabla shouted at Mariusz; he shouted utspokoj sir do diabla several times, Mariusz had better utspokoj sir do diabla take it easy, no fucking guns to anyone's temple.

Thumb on the decocking lever, Mariusz pulled it back, laughed, and lowered the gun. Hoffmann carried on talking in Swedish.

"Do you know who Frank Stein is?"

Hoffmann studied the buyer. His eyes should be irritated, insulted, even furious by now

They were stressed and frightened and the silver-clad arm was trying to hide it.

"You know that I do."

"Good. Who is he?"

"C. Tidaholm. A sixth name. Satisfied?"

Piet Hoffmann picked his mobile phone up from the table.

"Then maybe you'd like to speak to him? Since you did time together?"

He held the telephone out in front of him, photographed the eyes that were watching him and then dialed a number that he'd learned by heart. They stared at each other in silence as he sent the picture and then dialed the number again.

The two men in suits, Mariusz and Jerzy, were agitated. Z drugiej strony. Mariusz was going to move, he should be on the other side, to the right of the buyer. Blizej glowy. He should get even closer, keep the gun up, hold it to his right temple.