Three Seconds

will borrow a pile of porn magazines and disappear into his cell to masturbate. A prison system without drugs would therefore entail chaos and heightened anxiety and would thus put new demands on its staff. If prisoners were not high on chemical substances, the Prison and Probation Service would be forced to improve skills and competence at a cost that we, society, would not be prepared to pay.
     
    FICTION Martin Jacobson does not exist.
     
    __________
    With enormous gratitude to:
     
    Billy, Kenta, C, R and T
, who have served or are serving long sentences, who have lived longer inside than outside, who in this book, as in all our previous books, have provided us with the necessary knowledge, authenticity and credibility to write about crime, whether it is about why forty degrees is not as good as fifty degrees when preparing tulips to be filled with amphetamine, or the necessary consistency for rubber to protect the stomach, or what a toilet outside a workshop in a maximum security prison looks like. Your trust strengthens our resolve to differentiate between bad people and bad actions.
     
    the wise and courageous police officers
who have guided us through the extraordinary grey zone that unites police and criminals. Without you we would not have had the knowledge or legitimacy to describe in a novel how the work with covert human intelligence unravels the legal security that we others take for granted in a democracy.
     
    for prison personnel – security, wardens, principal officers and governors
– who, when you have met us, have always helped, but who are caught between the ambition to try to do a good job and a system that forces you to reach for the scissors and cut your uniform into rags for cleaning the car.
     
    Reine Adolfsson
for your expertise on explosives,
Janne Hedström
for your knowledge of forensic science,
Henrik Hjulström
for your expertise on snipers,
Henrik Lewenhagen
and
Lasse Lageren
for your medical knowledge,
Dorota Ziemia ń ska
because you speak better Polish than we do.
     
    Fia Roslund
because you are there for us and the text throughout the writing process.
     
    Niclas Breimar, Ewa Eiman, Mikael Nyman, Daniel Mattisson
and
Emil Eiman-Roslund
for your extraordinarily wise opinions.
     
    Niclas Salomonsson, Tor Jonasson, Catherine Mörk, Szilvia Molnar
and
Leyla Belle Drake
at Salomonsson Agency for your energy, competence, and presence here and abroad.