Anders Roslund: Three Seconds

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.

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.