Three Seconds

mouthpiece, as if he was uncertain as to how to continue.
    ‘And I apologise. For that. I was perhaps … well, you know.’
    ‘No, what?’
    ‘Damn it, Ågestam!’
    ‘What?’
    ‘I was perhaps … I may have been a bit … churlish, a bit … well, unnecessarily harsh.’
    __________
    Lars Ågestam walked down the seven flights of stairs in the offices at Kungsbron. A pleasant evening, warm, he longed for heat, as he always did after eight months of bitter wind and unpredictable snow. He turned around, looked at the windows of the Regional Public Prosecution Office, all dark. Two late phone calls had been longer than he expected: one phone call home – he had explained that he had to stay late and several times promised that he would wash the glasses from last night which still smelt of alcohol before he went to bed – then one call with Sven Sundkvist. He had got hold of him somewhere that sounded like an airport, he had wanted more information about the part of the investigation that involved Poland and their trip there to a now defunct amphetamine factory.
     
    ‘His flat?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You’re going to Ewert Grens’s flat?’
    Sven Sundkvist hadn’t said anything but didn’t want to hang up – their conversation was already finished and Ågestam was impatient, wanted to get on his way.
    ‘Yes. I’m going to Ewert Grens’s flat.’
    ‘I’m sorry, Ågestam, but there’s something I don’t quite understand. I’ve known Ewert, I’ve been his closest colleague for nearly fourteen years. But I have never,
never ever, Ågestam
, been invited to his flat. It’s … I don’t know … so private, a strange kind of … protection. Once, five years ago, one time only, Ågestam, the day after the hostage drama in the morgue at Söder hospital, I forced my way into his home, against his will. But now you’re saying that he
asked
you there? And you’re quite sure about that?’
    Lars Ågestam wandered slowly through the city, lots of people on the street despite the fact it was a Sunday and past nine o’clock – after winter’s drought of warmth and company it was always harder to go home when life had just returned.
    He hadn’t realised that it might be more than just an investigation, more than just a question of working late. It really felt like something had changed last night in the kitchen at Åkeshov; the whisky and three hundred and two copies of secret intelligence reports resembled a kind of closeness. But Ewert Grens had soon killed that feeling, happy to hurt in the way that only he knew how. So if it was as extraordinary to be invited to his flat as Sven made out, maybe there
had
been a change, they were perhaps closer to tolerating each other.
    He looked at the people around him again, those drinking beer in their coats and scarves in outside cafés, laughing, chatting, as people who get on well together do.
    He sighed.
    There had been no change, there never would be.
    Grens had other reasons, Ågestam was sure of it, his own reasons, ones that he would never dream of sharing with a young public prosecutor he had decided to despise.
    ‘Grens.’
    Still a lot of traffic on Sveavägen, he had to concentrate to hear the voice on the intercom.
    ‘It’s Ågestam, will you—’
    ‘I’ll open. Four flights up.’
    A thick reddish carpet on the floor, walls that were possibly marble, lights that were bright without being offensive. If he had lived in town, in a flat, he would have looked for an entrance like this.
    He avoided the lift, broad staircase all the way up, E AND A GRENS on the letter box in a dark door.
    ‘Come in.’
    The large detective superintendent with the thinning hair opened the door, same clothes as that afternoon and the night before, a grey jacket and even greyer trousers.
    Ågestam looked around in wonder – the hall seemed endless.
    ‘It’s big.’
    ‘I haven’t spent much time here in the last few years. But still manage to find my way around.’
    Ewert Grens smiled. It looked unnatural. He had never experienced it before. His coarse face was normally tense, harassing the people it was facing; the smile, a different face that made Ågestam uncertain.
    He walked down the long hall with rooms opening off it, counted at least six, empty rooms that looked untouched, asleep, that was how Sven had described them, rooms that didn’t want to wake up.
    The kitchen was as spacious, as untouched.
    He followed Grens through the first section and into the next,