Three Seconds

waited while she typed in her user name and password, and swiped a small plastic card along the top of her keyboard.
    ‘Who?’
    Her authorisation card on a lanyard round her neck; she fiddled with it nervously.
    ‘721018-0010.’
    He leant his arm on the back of her chair, he knew she liked it.
    ‘Piet Hoffmann?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Stockrosvägen 21, 122 32 Enskede.’
    He looked at the screen and the first page of the Swedish National Police Board’s records for Piet Hoffmann.
1. SERIOUS FIREARMS OFFENCES 08-06-1998 CHAPTER 9, PART 1, SECTION 2 THE FIREARMS ACT
2. UNLAWFUL DISPOSAL 04-05-1998 CHAPTER 10, PART 4, SPC
3. UNLAWFUL DRIVING 02-05-1998 PART 3, SECTION 2 RTOA (1951:649)
IMPRISONMENT ONE (1) YEAR SIX (6) MONTHS
04-07-1998 SENTENCE COMMENCED
01-07-1999 RELEASED ON PAROLE
Remaining term of imprisonment six months
    ‘I just want to make a couple of adjustments.’
    He might have touched her back as he leant towards the screen. Never more than that, the illusion of togetherness. They both knew what it was about, but she let herself be fooled because she needed something that resembled human contact, and he pretended because he needed someone to work for him. They used each other in the same way that a police handler and informer did, a silent agreement that was never defined, but that was a prerequisite for wanting to meet in the first place.
    ‘Adjustments?’
    ‘I want you … to add just a few things.’
    He changed position, leant back, his hand near her back again.
    ‘Where?’
    ‘The first page. The Österåker bit.’
    ‘Sentenced to one year and six months.’
    ‘Change it to five years.’
    She didn’t ask why. She never did. She trusted him, trusted that the detective superintendent from the crime operations unit in Stockholm was sitting close to her in the best interests of society and crime prevention. Light fingers dancing on the keyboard as the line with ONE (1) YEAR SIX (6) MONTHS became FIVE (5) YEARS.
    ‘Thank you.’
    ‘Is that all?’
    ‘Next line. Convicted of serious firearms offences. That’s not enough. I want you to add a couple more offences. Attempted murder. Aggravated assault on an officer.’
    Only one computer on, only one desk lamp on in the large room on the first floor of the National Courts Administration. Wilson was aware of the risk that the woman who had stayed late was taking, while her colleagues had left long ago and were now lounging around on sofas in sitting rooms watching TV, she weighed the feeling of being important against the risk of prosecution and gross document forgery.
    ‘Now he’s got a longer sentence and more
ratio decidendi
. Anything else?’
    She printed off the relevant page of 721018-0010’s criminal record and gave it to the man who was sitting so close and made her feel alive. She waited while he read and after a while seemed to lean in even closer.
    ‘That’s fine. For today.’
    Erik Wilson held two pieces of paper that made the difference between respect and suspicion. Within the first hour of being inside Aspsås Prison walls, Piet Hoffmann would have to prove his convictions to insistent fellow prisoners and doing five years for ATTEMPTED MURDER and AGGRAVATED ASSAULT ON AN OFFICER was the same as getting the security classification: powerful and capable of killing, if necessary.
    Paula would be seen as what he was pretending to be from the very minute he entered his cell.
    Erik Wilson stroked the smiling woman on the arm, gave her a fleeting kiss on the cheek, and she was still smiling as he rushed away to get the late train back to Stockholm.
    __________
    The house looked smaller as the dark started to gnaw at the corners.
     
    The facade was leached of colour, the chimney and new tiled roof sank lower over the upstairs windows.
    Piet Hoffmann stood between the two apple trees in the garden and tried to see into the kitchen and sitting room. It was half past ten, it was late, but she was usually still up at this time, somewhere to be seen behind the white or blue curtains.
    He should have phoned.
    The meeting at Rosenbad had finished just after five and then spilled over into the three bunches of tulips from the flower shop and the CD copies of a recording made in a room at the Government Offices and two letters addressed to two people who would never receive them and then up into the dark loft again and eleven tins with eleven kilos of amphetamine in a bag and buds that two by two were first put in the oven, then the