Three Seconds

Kungsängen and the Svea Life Guards, via Norrviken and Edsberg, through small and pleasant suburbs with big detached houses, which made Sven phone home to Anita and Jonas. They had had breakfast together and were about to go to their separate schools. He missed them.
    The doctor was a young man, tall and thin, on the verge of skinny, with reserved eyes. He greeted them and showed them into a dark room with drawn curtains.
    ‘He’s got severe concussion. I’ll have to ask you to keep the room dark.’
    One single bed in the room.
    A man in his sixties, greying hair, tired eyes, scratches and wounds on both his cheeks, a cut on his forehead that looked deep, his right arm in a sling.
    He was found lying under a wall.
    ‘My name is Johan Ferm. We met last night when you came in. I’ve got two policemen with me who would like to ask you some questions.’
    The fire and rescue service had searched the burnt-out workshop for a long time before they heard faint sounds from underneath one of the piles of rubble. A naked and bruised prison officer with a broken collar bone, but a person who was still breathing.
    ‘I’ve given them five minutes. Then I’ll ask them to leave.’
    The grey-haired man pulled himself up, grimaced with pain and threw up in a bowl by the side of the bed.
    ‘He is
not
allowed to move. Severe concussion. Your five minutes have already started.’
    Ewert Grens turned towards the young doctor.
    ‘We’d prefer it if we could be left alone.’
    ‘I’m staying here. For medical reasons.’
    Grens stood by the window while Sven Sundkvist moved a stool from the sink to the bedside, making sure that his face was at about the same height as the injured prison warden’s.
    ‘You know Grens?’
    Martin Jacobson nodded. He knew who Ewert Grens was, they had met several times; the detective superintendent regularly visited the place where he had chosen to work all his life.
    ‘This is not an interview, Jacobson. We’ll do that later, when you’re well enough and we have more time. But we do need some information now.’
    ‘Sorry?’
    ‘This is not—’
    ‘You’ll have to speak louder. My ear drums burst in the explosion.’
    Sven leant forward and raised his voice.
    ‘We’ve got a fairly good picture of what happened when you were taken hostage. Your colleagues have given us a detailed description of the shooting of a prisoner in solitary confinement.’
    The doctor tapped on Sven’s shoulder.
    ‘Ask short questions. That’s all he can manage. Short answers. Otherwise you’ll just be wasting your five minutes.’
    Sven considered turning round and telling the man in the white coat to shut up. But he didn’t. He never snapped at people as it seldom helped the situation.
    ‘First of all … can you remember any of what happened yesterday?’
    Jacobson was breathing heavily, he was in a lot of pain and struggled to find the words that disappeared in his seriously concussed brain.
    ‘I remember everything. Until I lost consciousness. If I’ve understood correctly, a wall fell on me?’
    ‘It fell down as a result of an explosion. But I want to know … what happened just before?’
    ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t there.’
    ‘You weren’t … there?’
    ‘I was in another room, Hoffmann put me there, hands tied behind my back, somewhere at the back of the workshop, near the main door. He moved me there after we’d stripped. And after that I think we only had contact once.
You’re not going to die
. That’s what he said. Just before the explosion.’
    Sven looked at Ewert – they had both registered what the elderly guard had just said.
    ‘Jacobson … do you think that Hoffmann moved you in order to … protect you?’
    Martin Jacobson answered straight away.
    ‘I’m sure that’s why he did it. Despite everything that happened … I didn’t feel threatened any more.’
    Sven leant even further forward, it was important that Jacobson could hear.
    ‘The explosion. I want to ask more about that. If you think back, can you remember anything that might explain it? And the incredible force of it?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Nothing at all?’
    ‘I’ve thought about it. And of course, it was a workshop and there was diesel. That explains the smoke. But the actual explosion … nothing.’
    The colour of Jacobson’s face had changed from white to ashen grey and great drops of sweat were running from his hairline.
    The doctor moved over to the bed.
    ‘He can’t deal with much more. Just