Three Seconds

for a while by the pins and flags which marked the discolouring on the sitting room wall, and which was interesting in terms of the angle and force of the shot. That was what he had come for. To analyse the blood splashes. That was what he needed for the next meeting, that and Paula’s version. Erik Wilson concentrated on the funnel-shaped area that the guys from forensics had marked out with two pieces of string, one end of which had no flags and no blood and no brain tissue. He studied and memorised it until he was certain of exactly where the two people who were important to him had been at the moment the shot was fired; where the person who fired had stood and where the person who
hadn’t
fired must have been standing.
    There was a pleasant breeze blowing on Sankt Eriksbron as he looked out over the boats, trains, cars – that was what he liked so much about walking, being able to pause for a while, to look.
    He had heard Paula’s version of events and the tension last night on his mobile phone, and now that he had had the opportunity to study the flat in peace and quiet, it looked like what he said was true. He knew that Paula was capable and that if the choice had been between life and death, Paula had both the strength and the ability to kill. It could easily have been him who fired the shot, but Wilson was now certain that that was not the case. Paula had sounded more and more harassed and frightened with every phone call, and after nine years working together as handler and infiltrator the close contact had developed into trust, and Erik Wilson had learnt to hear when he was telling the truth.
    He stopped in front of the door to Sankt Eriksplan 17, brittle glass in an old wooden frame, so close to the heavy traffic of the main road.He looked around, a face passed by but didn’t notice, he checked again, then went in.
    He had left the marks and splashes of blood in Västmannagatan, then taken the waiting taxi to Kronoberg and finally an office in the homicide unit. According to the Duty Management System, a detective had already been assigned to the case. Ewert Grens, assisted by Sven Sundkvist and Mariana Hermansson. Grens and Wilson had worked together in the same unit for a number of years, but he didn’t really know the strange detective superintendent. He had tried to make contact for a long time, without any response whatsoever and had then just given up, decided that he did not need an old man in his life who had once been the best, but now just listened to Siw Malmkvist and was bitter. Erik Wilson stayed in front of the computer. He switched from the DMS to the Crime Reporting system and searched for Västmannagatan 79, and found three hits in the past ten years. He called up the most recent entry, dealing in stolen goods, one ton of refined copper that was sold by a man with a Finnish name in one of the flats on the ground floor.
    Erik Wilson closed the door to Sankt Eriksplan 17 and paused in the silence, away from the traffic frenzy. The stairwell was dark and when he was unsuccessful in his third attempt to turn on the lights he decided to take the small lift up to the fifth floor, getting out into a construction site. The flat was being totally renovated, so the tenants had been moved out. He stood on the brown paper and listened to nothing until he was certain that he was alone, then opened the locked door with STENBERG written on the letter box, went in to the two rooms and kitchen and checked over the furniture that was protected by transparent plastic sheeting. This was how he operated. A couple of the biggest private landlords in the city gave him the keys and work schedules for flats that were empty and being renovated. This was number five. Wilson had used it for just under a month; he’d met several different infiltrators here. He would keep it until the renovation was finished and the tenants had moved back in.
    He pulled back the plastic from the kitchen window, opened it and looked out over the communal gardens at the back, with carefully raked gravel paths and some new outdoor furniture over by the two swings and short slide. Paula would be there in a minute. He’d come out of the back door of the house opposite that had an entrance at Vulcanusgatan15. Always in an empty flat, always with a communal garden at the back that could be accessed from another address.
    Erik Wilson closed the window and taped the plastic back against the glass, just as the door below opened and Paula