Three Seconds

got plenty of juice.’
    He pointed to the screen.
    ‘I don’t understand, Erik. You’ve worked together for nine years. But when I show you that picture there … the exact moment he … there, do you see, exactly
there
he dies … you don’t react.’
    Erik Wilson snorted.
    ‘He wasn’t my friend.’
    You trusted me.
    ‘But I was his friend.’
    I trusted you.
    ‘That’s the way it works, Sundkvist. A handler pretends to be the informant’s best friend. A handler has to play the role of the informant’s best friend so bloody well that the informant is willing to risk his life every day to get more information for his handler.’
    I miss you
.
    ‘So the guy you saw on the screen? You were right. I didn’t react.’
    Erik Wilson dropped his linen napkin on the table.
    ‘Are you paying, Sundkvist?’
    He started to leave. The tasteful restaurant around him, the lady on her own at the table to the left with a glass of red wine, two men to the right at a table full of papers and dessert plates.
    ‘Västmannagatan 79.’
    Sven Sundkvist caught up with him, beside him.
    ‘You knew everything, Erik. But you chose to say nothing. And contributed to the disappearance of someone associated with a murder. You manipulated police authority records and the national courts administration database. You placed—’
    ‘Are you threatening me?’
    Erik Wilson had stopped, red face, shoulders up.
    He was showing something that was more than just nothing.
    ‘Are you, Sundkvist? Threatening me?’
    ‘What do you think?’
    ‘What do I think? You’ve tried to convince me by showing me evidence and tried to get me to feel something by showing me pictures of death. And now you’re trying to threaten me with some kind of bloody investigation? Sundkvist, you’ve used all the chapters in the interview book. What do I think? You’re insulting me.’
    He continued on down the small step, past the table with four older men who were looking for their glasses and studying the menu and the empty serving trolleys and the two green climbers on a white wall.
    One last look.
    He stopped.
    ‘But … the truth is that I don’t like people who burn my best informant when I’m not there.’
    He looked at Sven Sundkvist.
    ‘So … yes, that recording. The meeting you’re talking about. It did happen. What you heard is genuine. Every single word.’

Ewert Grens should perhaps have laughed. At least felt whatever it was that sometimes bubbles up in your belly, a delight that can’t be heard.
     
    The recording was genuine.
    The meeting had taken place.
    Sven had called from a restaurant in the centre of Jacksonville as he watched Wilson walk to his car and start the journey back to South Georgia, after he had confirmed it all.
    Grens didn’t laugh. He had emptied himself that morning in a cage on a roof, he had screamed until the rage was released and let him sleep on a sofa, so now there was a space to be filled.
    But not with more anger, that was no longer enough.
    Not with satisfaction, even though he knew he was so close.
    But hate.
    Hoffmann had been burnt. But survived. And taken hostages in order to continue surviving.
    I carried out a legitimate murder
.
    Ewert Grens rang a person he loathed for the second time.
    ‘I need your help again.’
    ‘OK.’
    ‘Can you come to my flat tonight?’
    ‘Your flat?’
    ‘Corner of Odengatan and Sveavägen.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘As I said. I need your help.’
    Lars Ågestam scoffed.
    ‘You want me to meet you? After work? Why should I want to do that? After all … I’m not … now how did you put it … your
mate
.’
    The secret intelligence report that was also on the laptop, but so fresh that it was in another file.
    The one I didn’t show you last night.
    The one that I’m going to show you because I have no intention of carrying someone else’s guilt.
    ‘It’s not a social, it’s work. Västmannagatan 79. The preliminary investigation you just scaled down.’
    ‘You’re welcome to come to the Regional Public Prosecution Office tomorrow during the day.’
    ‘You can open it again. As I know what
actually
happened. But I need your help one more time, Ågestam. Tomorrow morning is too late. That is when the head of the Government Offices security realises that something is missing and passes on that information. When the wrong people then have time to adapt their versions, manipulate the evidence, change reality yet again.’
    Grens coughed extensively close to the