Three Seconds

recruit them when they’re on remand.’
    I recognise you, it’s you, even in that picture from the autopsy when you were being washed, you looked the same.
    ‘We trained him, gave him a background. He was paid by Copenhagen Police as an infiltrator to initiate deals with as many of the big players in organised crime as possible. Hells Angels, Bandidos, the Russians, Yugoslavians, Mexicans … whichever mafia you like. This was the third time that he had initiated a deal with the Polish group, Wojtek.’
    ‘Wojtek?’
    ‘Wojtek Security International. Security guards, bodyguards, CIT. Officially. Just like in all the other Eastern European states. A facade for organised crime.’
    ‘Polish mafia. Now it has a name. Wojtek.’
    ‘But it was the first time he was dealing with them in Sweden. Without back-up. We wanted to avoid an operation on Swedish territory. So it was what we call an uncontrolled purchase.’
    Ewert Grens apologised. He had the photo of the dead man in one hand and his mobile phone in the other as he left the room and went out into the departures hall, dodging the bags that were hurrying towards a new queue.
    ‘Sven?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Where are you?’
    ‘In my office.’
    ‘Get in front of the computer and do a multisearch for Jens Christian Toft in all the databases. Born in nineteen sixty-five.’
    He bent down and picked up a bag that had fallen off a smiling, sunburnt old lady’s trolley. She thanked him and he smiled back as he listened to Sven Sundkvist pull out his chair, and then the irritating note that sounds like a tune every time you turn on the computer.
    ‘Ready?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘I haven’t got much time.’
    ‘Ewert, I’m logging on. It takes a bit of time. There’s not a lot I can do to change that.’
    ‘You can open it faster.’
    A couple of minutes of clacking on the keyboard, Grens walking restlessly between the travellers and the check-in desks, waiting for Sven’s voice.
    ‘No hits.’
    ‘Not anywhere?’
    ‘No criminal record, not in the driver’s licence register, he’s not a Swedish citizen, his fingerprints haven’t been recorded, he’s not in the criminal intelligence database.’
    Grens walked slowly twice round the bustling departures hall.
    But he had a name. He now knew who had been lying in a dark patch on the sitting room floor.
    It meant nothing.
    He wasn’t interested in the dead man. A lifeless identity was only meaningful if it helped him to get closer to the perpetrator. It was his job to check the name, but it wasn’t to be found in any Swedish register, so it didn’t make the slightest difference.
    ‘I want you to listen to this.’
    Ewert Grens was once again sitting in the room with the oversized Danish pastries and miniature cups in Kastrup police station.
    ‘Not yet.’
    ‘It’s not much. But it’s all I’ve got.’
    A voice whispering seven words to the emergency services was still his closest link to the murderer.
    ‘Not yet, Grens. Before we carry on, I want to make sure that you are absolutely clear about the terms of this meeting.’
    Jacob Andersen took the CD player and headphones but put them down on the table.
    ‘You didn’t get any information earlier on the phone because Iwanted to know who I was talking to. And whether I could trust you. Because if it becomes known that Carsten was working for us, there’s a risk that other infiltrators – who he had recommended and backed for Wojtek – might also die. So what we talk about here doesn’t go beyond these walls. OK?’
    ‘I don’t like all this cloak-and-dagger stuff surrounding informers and their operations. It interferes with other investigations.’
    ‘OK?’
    ‘OK.’
    Andersen put on the headphones and listened.
    ‘Someone raising the alarm from the flat.’
    ‘I realise that.’
    ‘His voice?’ Ewert Grens pointed at the photograph on the table.
    ‘No.’
    ‘Have you heard it before?’
    ‘I’d need to hear more to be able to give you a definite answer.’
    ‘That’s all we’ve got.’
    Jacob Andersen listened again.
    ‘No. I don’t recognise the voice.’
    Carsten, who was called Jens Christian Toft, was dead in the picture but it felt almost like he was looking at him, and Grens didn’t like it. He pulled the photo towards him and flipped it over.
    ‘I’m not interested in him. I’m interested in who shot him. I want to know who else was in the flat.’
    ‘I have no idea.’
    ‘You must’ve damn well known who he was