Three Seconds

to ten years’ imprisonment.
    If those in the know denied it, if the people who had arranged a fake trial and produced a criminal record, if they denied it, there was no one else who could explain.
    He wouldn’t get out. He would be pursued to the death and no matter how much he ran and how long he managed to stay hidden, there was no one there on the other side of the wall who would open the door and help him out.
    __________
    It was windy out in the prison yard, warm air rebounding off the concrete wall and coming back with even less oxygen. The prisongovernor walked briskly and wiped his damp forehead with his shirt sleeve. The main door to solitary confinement was locked and he rattled through his keys. It wasn’t often he visited the dismal corridor that was the temporary home of those who couldn’t conform even with the country’s most serious criminals.
     
    ‘Martin.’
    The wardens’ room was just inside the door and he nodded to three of his employees, Martin Jacobson and two temporary wardens, youngsters whose names he hadn’t learnt yet.
    ‘Martin, I’d like to talk to you for a moment.’
    The two temps nodded; they had heard what he hadn’t said and went out into the corridor, closing the door behind them.
    ‘Hoffmann.’
    ‘Cell 9. He’s not looking good. He—’
    ‘He’s to go back. To G2. By tomorrow morning at the latest.’
    The principal officer looked out into the empty corridor, heard the big ugly clock on the wall ticking, the second hand filling the room.
    ‘Lennart?’
    ‘You heard right.’
    Martin Jacobson got up from the chair by the narrow desk that was largely used as a place to put cups, looked at his friend, colleague, boss.
    ‘We’ve been working together here for … a good twenty years. We’ve been neighbours for almost as long. You are one of my only friends in here, and out there, one of the few people I ask round for a Sunday drink.’
    He tried to catch the eye of someone who wasn’t there.
    ‘Look at me, Lennart.’
    ‘No questions.’
    ‘Look at me!’
    ‘I’m asking you, Martin, this time, no bloody questions.’
    The grey-haired man swallowed, in surprise, in anger.
    ‘What’s this all about?’
    ‘No bloody questions.’
    ‘He’ll die.’
    ‘Martin—’
    ‘This goes against everything we know, everything we say, everything we do.’
    ‘I’m going now. You’ve got an order. Do it.’
    Lennart Oscarsson opened the door, he was already on his way out.
    ‘He punched you, Lennart … is this personal?’
    It tightened. And when he moved, every step ached, a shooting pain from his cheekbone down.
    ‘Is it? Is it personal?’
    ‘Just do as I ask.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘In that case, Martin, do as you are ordered!’
    ‘I won’t do it. Because it’s wrong. If he’s going to be moved back … then you’re going to have to do it yourself.’
    __________
    Lennart Oscarsson walked towards Cell 9 with two huge holes in his back. He could feel his perhaps best friend’s eyes, staring, and he wanted to turn round and explain the order that he himself had so recently been appalled by. Martin was a wise friend, an experienced colleague, the sort who had the courage to speak up when someone who should know better was wrong.
     
    An unconscious hand to the back of his jacket as he approached the locked cell, brushed over the fabric, by the holes, the eyes, trying to get rid of them. The temps with no names were close behind him and stopped by the door, keys jangling as they looked for the right one.
    The prisoner was lying on the iron bed, naked except for a pair of white underpants. He was resting, trembling, his torso as white as his face.
    ‘You’re going back.’
    The pale body, he didn’t look like much, but only a couple of hours ago he had punched him hard in the face.
    ‘Tomorrow morning. Eight o’clock.’
    He didn’t move.
    ‘To the same unit and the same cell.’
    He didn’t seem to hear, to see.
    ‘Did you hear what I said?’
    The governor waited, then nodded to his young colleagues and to the door.
    ‘The books.’
    ‘Excuse me?’
    ‘
I need the books
. It’s my legal right.’
    ‘Which books?’
    ‘I’ve asked for two of the five books that I have the right to have.
Nineteenth Century Stockholm. The Marionettes
. They’re in my cell.’
    ‘You’re going to read?’
    ‘The nights are long here.’
    Lennart Oscarsson nodded to the wardens again – they should close and lock and leave the cell.
    __________
    He sat