Three Seconds

it.’
    Hoffmann didn’t turn round when he replied.
    ‘You were at the same meeting as me in Warsaw. You know the rules. Until we’re done here, it’s
me
, and
only me
, who decides.’

He had been uncomfortable during the short journey from Kronoberg to Vasastan. Or rather, he’d been sitting on something. When Hermansson swung into Västmannagatan and pulled up outside number 79, he lifted his heavy body a touch while he felt around on the seat with his hand. Two cassettes. Siw mixes. He held the hard plastic cases in his hand and looked at the music that should have been packed away, and then at the passenger seat and glove compartment. There were two more cassettes in there. He bent down and pushed them as far under the seat as possible. He was as scared of being near them as he was of forgetting to take them with him, the last four remnants of another life that would remain packed away in a cardboard box sealed with tape.
     
    Ewert Grens preferred sitting here in the back.
    He no longer had any music to play and he had no desire to listen to or answer the frequent calls on the radio. And anyway, Hermansson drove considerably better than both Sven and himself in the busy city traffic.
    There wasn’t much room on the street; three police cars and forensics’ dark-blue Volkswagen bus double-parked alongside a tight row of residents’ cars. Mariana Hermansson slowed down, drove up onto the pavement and stopped in front of the main door, which was guarded by two uniformed policemen. They were both young and pale and the one closest rushed over to the unknown men and a woman in a red car. Hermansson knew what he wanted and at precisely the same moment that he tapped on the window, she rolled it down and held up her police ID.
    ‘We’re investigators. All three of us.’
    She smiled at him. Not only did he look young, he was probably considerably younger than she was. She guessed he was in his first weeks of service, as there weren’t many who didn’t recognise Ewert Grens.
    ‘Was it you who took the call?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Who raised the alarm?’
    ‘Anonymous, according to the CCC.’
    ‘You mentioned an execution?’
    ‘We said it
looked
like an execution. You’ll understand when you get there.’
    Up on the fourth floor, the door furthest away from the lift was open. Another uniformed colleague was standing watch. He was older, had been in the force longer, he recognised Sundkvist and gave him a nod. Two steps later Hermansson had her ID ready and was just about to show it, and she wondered if she would ever stay anywhere long enough to be recognised by more than her immediate colleagues – she didn’t think so, she wasn’t the sort who stayed.
    They put on their white coats and transparent shoe covers and went in. Ewert had insisted on waiting for the lift that was slow down and slow up, so he’d be there soon.
    A long hallway, a bedroom with nothing in it but a narrow bed, a kitchen with nice cupboards painted in a shade of green, and a study with an abandoned desk and empty shelves.
    And one more room.
    They looked at each other, and went in.
    The sitting room really only had one piece of furniture. A large, rectangular oak dining table with six matching chairs. Four of them were by the table, the fifth had been pushed back at an angle, as if the person sitting there had got up suddenly. The sixth was lying on the floor. The heavy chair had for some reason fallen and they went over to establish why.
    The dark patch on the carpet was the first thing they saw.
    A large, brownish stain with uneven edges. They guessed about forty, maybe fifty centimetres in diameter.
    Then they saw the head.
    It was in the middle of the stain, on top of it, as if it was floating. The man looked relatively young – it was hard to tell as his face was mangled, but his body was strong, and his clothes were not the sort that older men often wear: black boots, black jeans, a white T-shirt, lots of silver round his neck, wrists and fingers.
    Sven Sundkvist tried to concentrate on the gun in his right hand.
    If he only looked at it for long enough, if he blanked everything else out, he might avoid the ugliness of death that he would never understand.
    It was shiny and black, nine-millimetre calibre and a make that he didn’t often see at crime scenes: Radom, a Polish weapon. He bent downcloser to it, thereby distancing himself from the life that had spilled out onto the expensive carpet and left a large dark