Three Seconds

criminal record who, when this was recorded, worked as an informant for the City Police. The man searching him, with his hands on the informant’s back, is a chief superintendent.’
    Grens looked at Göransson, slumped at the table.
    He paused, no eye contact.
    ‘The laptop belongs to the police. But this is mine.’
    He had his hand in the outside pocket of the briefcase and was now holding a CD player.
    ‘I was given it by Ågestam nearly five years ago after we’d had a slight altercation. It’s a modern one, the kind that young people have, don’t tell him, but I haven’t actually used it much. Until a couple of weeks ago, that is. When I started listening to some interesting recordings.’
    The bag of cinnamon buns was in the way, so he moved it.
    ‘But these I’ve borrowed from the property store. From a burglary in a flat in Stora Nygatan. The preliminary investigation was closed. The seized property released. No one claimed it.’
    He positioned two small speakers on the table and took his time wiring them up.
    ‘If they’re good … who knows, I might just keep them.’
    Ewert Grens pressed one of the buttons.
    Chairs scraping, noise of people moving.
    ‘A meeting.’
    He looked around the room.
    ‘In this room. At this table. Tenth of May at fifteen forty-nine. I’ll fast forward a bit, twenty-eight minutes and twenty-four seconds.’
    He turned to his line manager.
    Göransson had taken off his jacket, revealing dark stains near the armholes of his light blue shirt.
    ‘The person speaking. I think you’ll recognise the voice.’
    ‘You’ve dealt with similar cases before.’
    ‘You let me, Sven, Hermansson, Krantz, Errfors and …’
    ‘Ewert—’
    ‘… a whole bloody bunch of policemen work for weeks on an investigation that you already had the answer to.’
    Göransson looked at him for the first time. He had started to speak but Grens shook his head.
    ‘I’ll be done soon.’
    Fingers on the machine’s sensitive buttons, got the right one after a while.
    ‘I’ll fast forward some more. Twenty-two minutes and seventeen seconds. The same meeting. Another voice.’
    ‘I don’t want that to happen. You don’t want that to happen. Paula doesn’t have time for Västmannagatan.’
    Ewert Grens looked at the national police commissioner.
    Maybe the well polished veneer was starting to crack, it certainly felt like that: too many twitches around the eyes, hands rubbing slowly together.
    ‘Lie to your colleagues. Burn your employees. Give some crimes immunity so that others can be solved. If that is the future of policing … then I’m glad it’s only six years until I retire.’
    He didn’t expect a response, adjusted the speakers so they stood face on when he turned them towards the state secretary.
    ‘He was sitting directly opposite you. Doesn’t it feel strange?’
    ‘I guarantee that you won’t be charged for anything that happened at Västmannagatan 79. I guarantee that we will do our best to help you complete your operation in prison.’
    ‘A microphone, at about knee-height, on a person who was sitting in the same place that I am now.’
    ‘And … that we will look after you when the work is done. I know that you will then have a death threat and be branded throughout the criminal world. We will give you a new life, a new identity, and money to start over again abroad.’
    Grens lifted the small speakers, moved them even closer towards the state secretary.
    ‘I want to be sure that you hear what comes next.’
    Her voice again, exactly where he’d interrupted her.
    ‘I guarantee you this in my capacity as a state secretary of the Ministry of Justice.’
    He reached for the white paper bag, first one more cinnamon bun, then what was left of the coffee at the bottom of his cup.
    ‘Crime: failure to report a crime. Crime: protection of a criminal. Crime: conspiring to commit crime.’
    He was anticipating that they might ask him to leave, threaten to call security, ask him what the hell he thought he was doing.
    ‘Crime: perjury. Crime: gross misuse of public office. Crime: forgery of documents.’
    They sat still. They said nothing.
    ‘Perhaps you know of others?’
    Some seagulls had been circling outside the window since the meeting began.
    Their loud screeches were now the only thing to be heard.
    That, and the regular breathing of four people around a table.
    Ewert Grens stood up after a while, walked slowly across the room, first to the window and the