Anders Roslund - Three Seconds

The door opened. The older principal prison officer came in, ran his hand through his thick, gray hair and pointed out into the corridor.

"All that banging… has that got anything to do with you?"

"No."

"I've been working here for a long time. You're twitching, you're shaking, you're sweating. You're bloody frightened. And I think that's why you want to phone."

He closed the door and made sure that the prisoner made note. "Am I right?"

Piet Hoffmann looked at the blue uniform in front of him. He seemed friendly. He sounded friendly.

Don't trust anyone.

"No. It's got nothing to do with that. I just want to make a phone call now."

The principal prison officer sighed. The telephone cart was standing at the other end of the corridor, so this time he got out his mobile phone, dialed the number of city police and handed it over to the prisoner who refused to admit that he was frightened and that the banging out there had anything to do with it.

The first number. Ringing tone and no answer.

Twitching, shaking, sweating, it all got worse.

"Hoffmann."

"One more. The other number."

"You're not in a good way. I want to call a doctor. You should go to the hosp-"

"Dial the fucking number. You're not moving me anywhere." Ringing tone again. Three rings. Then a man's voice.

"Göransson."

He had answered.

His legs, he could feel them again.

He had answered.

He was just about to tell them, in a couple of moments they could start the administrative procedures that would mean freedom in a week.

"Jesus, finally, I've been trying… I need help. Now."

"Who am I talking to?"

"Paula?"

"Who?"

"Piet Hoffmann."

The silence didn't last that long, but it sounded like the phone had been put down, the electronic void that is empty, dead.

"Hello? For fuck's shake, hello, where-"

"I'm still here. What did you say your name was?"

"Hoffmann. Piet Hoffmann. We-"

"I'm very sorry, I have no idea who you are."

"What the fuck… you know… you know perfectly well who I am, we met, just recently in the state secretary's office… I-"

"No, we've never met. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a lot to do." Every muscle was tensed, his stomach was burning and his chest and his

throat and when everything is burning you have to scream or run or hide or… "I'm going to call the hospital unit now."

The telephone in his hand. He refused to let go.

"I'm not going anywhere until I've got my two books."

"The phone."

"My books. I have the right to have five books in solitary confinement!"

He loosened his grip on the cordless phone and let it slip out of his hand.

It cracked when it hit the floor, plastic bits bouncing in every direction. He lay down next to them, his arms around his stomach and chest and throat, it was still burning and when everything is burning, you have to run or hide.

"Did he sound desperate?"

"Yes."

"Stressed?"

"Yes."

"Frightened?"

"Very frightened."

They looked at each other. If we let it out who Hoffmann is? They had more coffee. What the organization then does with that knowledge is not our problem. They moved the piles of paper from one side of the table to the other. We will not and cannot be responsible for other people's actions.

It should have been over.

They had arranged a meeting for a lawyer with one of his clients that evening. They had burned him.

And yet, not long ago, he had called from a cell, from prison. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"It can't have-"

"It was him."

The national police commissioner fetched the pack of cigarettes that was kept in a desk drawer and not to be smoked. He offered the open pack to his colleague, the matches were on the table and the room was immediately awash with white.

"Give me one too."

Göransson shook his head.

"If you haven't smoked for two years, I don't want to encourage you." "I'm not going to smoke it. I'm just going to hold it."

He felt it between his fingers, sorely missed and familiar-now it offered calm when he most needed it.

"We've got plenty of time."

"Four days. And one's already gone. If Grens and Hoffmann meet…, If Hoffmann talks… if-"

Göransson interrupted himself. He didn't need to say more. They could both visualize the limping detective inspector, aging and obstinate, the sort who never gives up, who pursues the truth as far as he can and then some more when he realizes that a handful of colleagues have known it from the start. He would carry on and he wouldn't stop until he found the ones who had protected it and then buried it.

"It's just a matter of time, Fredrik. An organization that gets hold of that kind of information and has the means will use them. It might take a bit more time when there's no contact with fellow prisoners, but the moment will come."

The national police commissioner fingered the cigarette that wasn't lit.

It was so familiar. He would soon smell his fingertips, hold on to the forbidden pleasure a bit longer.

"But, if you want, we can… I mean, being locked away like that, in solitary confinement, it's a terrible place. No human contact. He should be moved back to the unit he came from, to the men he's gotten to know-if he's suffering down there, he should… well, he should be with other prisoners. On… humanitarian grounds."

He paused as he normally did in front of the window in the chief warden's office and looked out over his universe: the big prison and the small town. He had never been particularly curious about what might be elsewhere, what could be seen from here was all he had ever wished for. The reflection of the sun made the window a mirror and he gingerly touched his cheek, nose, forehead. He felt tender, it was hard to see properly in the darkened glass, but looked like the blue around his eye was already changing shade.

He had misread him, a desperation that he hadn't recognized. "Hello?"

The telephone on the desk had interrupted the feeling of his skin tightening.

"Lennart?"

He recognized the general director's voice.

"It's me."

There was a faint crackling in the receiver, a mobile somewhere outdoors and a strong wind.

"It's about Hoffmann."

"Okay.”

"He's to go back. To the unit he came from."

The crackling was now nearly inaudible.

"Lennart?"

"What the hell are you saying?"

"He's to go back. First thing tomorrow morning at the latest." "There's a serious threat involved."

"On humanitarian grounds."

"He is not going back to that unit. He should not even be in the same prison. If he's going anywhere, it's away, express transport, to Kumla or Hall." "You're not going to express him anywhere. He's going to go back."

"A prisoner who has been threatened is never sent back to the same unit." "It's an order."

The two bunches of tulips on his desk had started to open, the yellow petals like lit lamps in front of him.

"I was given an order to allow a late visit from a lawyer and I did it. I was given an order not to let a DS carry out an interview, and I did it. But this- I won't do it. If 0913 Hoffmann is sent back to the unit where he was threatened-"

"It's an order. Non-negotiable."

Lennart Oscarsson bent down toward the yellow petals, wanted to smell something that was genuine. His cheek brushed against a flower and tightened again; it had been a powerful punch.

"I personally would have nothing against seeing him go to hell. I have my reasons. But as long as I'm head of this prison, it's not going to happen. That would only mean death and there have been enough murders in Swedish prisons in recent years, investigations that no one has seen and no one has heard of and bodies that are eventually hidden away as no one is actually that interested."