Three Seconds

insistence that
I never hurt children, I always shut the door to their room, I never steal anything from them
; his mantra and defence to help him bear the shame, a home-made moral that made him seem a little better than he was, to himself at least, that kept self-loathing at bay.
    Piet knew, just like everyone else knew, that the man in cell 4 had pissed on that moral long ago. He stole whatever he could sell, from the children’s rooms as well, because the need for drugs was stronger than his self-respect.
    And the man further down in cell 8, who had been sentenced for assault so many times, who had devised another life lie, his own moral with another mantra, to keep himself afloat:
I never hit women, only men, I would never hit a woman
.
    Piet knew, just like everyone else knew, that the man in cell 8 had separated word from deed long ago. He hit women too, he hit anyone who crossed his path.
    __________
    Made up morals.
     
    Piet had scorned them, just as he had always held those who lied to themselves in contempt.
    He looked at her. The soft hand had been uncomfortable.
    He only had himself to blame. He had trampled all over his own morals, the very reason he was still someone he liked:
my family, I will never use my family for lies, I will definitely never force Zofia and the boys to get caught up in my lies.
    And now he’d done it, just like the man in cell 4 and the man in cell 8 and all the others he had despised.
    He had lied to himself.
    There was nothing left of him that he could like.
    Zofia turned off the water, she was done. She wiped around the sink and then sat down on his knee. He held her, kissed her on the cheek,twice like she always wanted, he burrowed his nose in the dip between her neck and shoulder, staying where the skin was softest.
    __________
    Erik Wilson opened an empty document on the computer that he only used after a meeting with an infiltrator.
     
M pulls a gun
(Polish 9mm Radom)
from shoulder holster.
M cocks the gun and holds it to
the buyer’s head.
    He tried to remember and write down Paula’s account from their meeting at number five.
    To protect him. To protect himself.
    But more than anything, to have a reason for paying out police reward money, should anyone ask why and when. Without an intelligence report and the pot for rewarding information from the general public, Paula would not be paid for his work or be able to remain anonymous and off the official payroll, nor would any of his colleagues.
P orders M to calm down.
M lowers the gun, takes a step
back, his weapon half-cocked.
    When the confidential intelligence report left his desk and was taken to the commissioner of the county criminal police, via Chief Superintendent Göransson, Wilson would delete it from the computer hard disk, activate the code lock and turn off the machine, which was not connected to the Internet for security reasons.
Suddenly the buyer shouts
‘I’m the police’.
    Erik Wilson wrote it, Göransson checked it and the county commissioner unit kept it.
    If anyone else read it, if anyone else knew … the infiltrator’s life was at risk. If the wrong people found out about Paula’s identity and operations, it would be as good as a death sentence.
M again aims the gun
at the buyer’s head.
    The Swedish police would not strike this time, they would not arrest anyone, or seize anything. The Västmannagatan 79 operation had had one single purpose: to strengthen Paula’s position in Wojtek, a drugs deal as part of Wojtek’s day-to-day business.
P tries to intervene and
the buyer screams ‘police’.
M holds the gun harder to
the buyer’s head and pulls the trigger.
    Every infiltrator had an as yet unspoken death sentence as his or her constant companion.
    Erik Wilson read the last lines of the secret report several times.
    It could have been Paula.
The buyer falls to the floor, at a right
angle to the chair.
    It could
not
have been Paula.
    The person or persons who had worked on the Danish informer’s background had done a lousy job. Erik Wilson had constructed Paula himself. Step by step, database by database.
    He knew that he was good at it.
    And he knew that Piet Hoffmann was good at surviving.
    __________
    Ewert Grens waited in one of Copenhagen airport’s beer-smelling bars drinking Danish mineral water from a brown paper cup.
     
    All these people on their way somewhere armed with Toblerone and chocolate liqueur in sealed plastic bags. He had never been able tounderstand why people