Three Seconds

had himself met him at the gate, driven him the fifty kilometres to Stockholm in his own car and when he had dropped him off, he carried on straight to the police headquarters and recorded the first observation of 721018-0010 in ASPEN , intelligence that from that moment would be available to every police officer who logged on to find out more about Piet Hoffmann. A concise, but accurate account ofhow, on his release, the suspect was met at the gates of Österåker by a car and two previous convicts and known criminals with confirmed links to the Yugoslavian mafia.
    Over the years he had successively made him more dangerous
observed near the property that was raided in connection with suspected arms dealing
and more violent
observed fifteen minutes before the murder in Östling in the company of the suspect, Markovi ć
and more ruthless. Wilson had varied his formulations and the degree of misinformation, and with each new observation had added to the myth of Piet Hoffmann’s potency until, according to a database on a computer, he was one of the most dangerous criminals in Sweden.
    He listened again. More footsteps out in the corridor. The sound got clearer, louder, until they passed his door and slowly disappeared again.
    He tilted the screen up.
    KNOWN .
    In two weeks’ time, Piet would be given a long prison sentence and then take over enough power to control the drug supply, the kind of force that was treated with respect inside.
    DANGEROUS .
    Which was why Erik Wilson now wrote this in capital letters.
    ARMED .
    The next colleague to check Piet Hoffmann in the database would now be presented with a special page and a special code that was only used for a handful of criminals.
    KNOWN DANGEROUS ARMED
    Any patrol with access to this truth, which was their own intelligence after all, would know him to be extremely dangerous and confront him as such, and this reputation would then accompany him in the secure transport that would transfer him from custody to prison.

He held the mobile phone to his ear. According to the automatic voice that spoke every ten seconds, it was exactly half past twelve when the dark door with HOLM on the letter box opened from inside and Piet Hoffmann walked into a plastic-sheeted flat on the second floor. The parquet floor was uneven and creaked, probably due to water damage.
     
    Number two.
    Högalidsgatan 38 and Heleneborgsgatan 9.
    Erik Wilson had made some instant coffee, as he usually did, and as normal, Hoffmann did not drink it. A soft sofa in what must have been the TV room, transparent plastic sheeting to protect the fabric during the two-month renovation that rustled when they moved and after a while clung to the film of sweat on his back.
    ‘We’ll use this.’
    Piet Hoffmann knew that they didn’t have much time.
    He could see it in Erik’s eyes, for the first time, as they darted around the room, restless and unfocused. The man who had been his contact for nine years and who had never laughed or cried was stressed, and therefore doing what stressed people often do, trying to hide it, thus making it all the more obvious.
    Hoffmann opened a small tin that once had been manufactured and sold for storing tea leaves, but which now contained the yellow, cohesive substance smelling strongly of tulips.
    ‘Blossom.’
    Erik Wilson carefully scraped off a piece with the plastic knife that Hoffmann gave him, put it to his tongue, felt it burning, and knew he would get a blister there.
    ‘Bloody strong. Two parts grape sugar?’
    ‘Yep.’
    ‘How much?’
    ‘Three kilos.’
    ‘Enough for a fast-track trial and a long sentence in a high security prison.’
    Piet Hoffmann pressed down the lid and put the tin back in his inner pocket. The other eighty-one kilos were still in the fan heater in the loft of the turn-of-the-century building on Vasagatan. He would later describe to Wilson where and how to find it. But not yet. It still had to be cut one more time, his own share, which he sometimes did, sold it on.
    ‘I’m going to need three days to knock out all other business. Wojtek will get the reports they need to continue.
Then
we’ll do what we set out to do. Eliminate.’
    Erik Wilson should have felt calmer, happier, curious. His best infiltrator was on his way to prison, exactly where both the Swedish police and Wojtek had planned for him to be, and he would start and end a mafia branch expansion. He wasn’t used to the stress and he saw that Piet had clocked