Three Seconds

had disappeared down the narrow path between the Samuelssons’ and Sundells’ houses. Then half a dose more. Thirty minutes later their temperatures had dropped and they were dressed and ready for nursery.
    He had twenty-one and half hours left.
    __________
    Piet Hoffmann had ordered Sweden’s most common car, a silver Volvo. It wasn’t ready, neither cleaned nor checked. He didn’t have time to spare, so instead chose a red Volkswagen Golf, Sweden’s second most common car.
     
    Someone who doesn’t want to be seen or remembered should stand out as little as possible.
    He parked near the churchyard and fifteen hundred metres away from the enormous concrete wall. A long and open decline all the way down, meadows of grass that were green but not that tall yet. That was where he was going. Aspsås prison, one of the country’s three high security prisons. He was going to be arrested, held on remand, prosecuted, sentenced and locked into a cell within the next ten, maybe twelve, or max fourteen days.
    He got out of the car and squinted into the sun and wind.
    It was going to be a beautiful day, but looking at a prison wall, all he could think of was hatred.
    Twelve fucking months inside another all-encompassing concrete wall, the only emotion that was left.
    He had for a long time thought it was simply the rebellion of a young person against everything that restricted or hemmed him in. It wasn’t. He was no longer particularly young, but the feeling was just as potent when he looked at the wall. Hatred of the routines, the tyranny, the isolation, the locked doors, the attitudes, the work with square blocks of wood in the workshops, the suspicion, the secure transport, urine tests, body searches. Hatred of the screws, the pigs, uniforms, rules, whatever represented society, that bloody hatred that he’d sharedwith the others, the only thing they had in common, that and the drugs and the loneliness. That hatred had forced them to talk to each other, even to strive for something, rather strive for something that was driven by hatred than nothing at all.
    This time he would be locked up because he wanted to be – no time to feel anything at all, he was there to complete something and then leave.
    He stood by the hired car in the morning sun and light wind. In the distance, at one end of the high wall, he could see identical red brick bungalows and a small town built up around the big prison. Those who didn’t work as prison warders in the corridors, worked in the construction company that repaired the floor in Block C, or the catering company that supplied the ready portions to the dining hall, or the electricians who adjusted the lighting in the yard. The people who lived in freedom on one side of the wall in Aspsås were completely dependent on those who were locked up on the other side.
    I guarantee that you won’t be charged for anything that happened at Västmannagatan 79.
    The digital recorder was still in his trouser pocket. He had listened to her voice several times in the past few hours, his right leg and the microphone had been close to her and her words were clear and easy to understand.
    I guarantee that we will do our best to help you complete your operation in prison.
    He opened the gate. The path had been raked recently, his every step erasing the traces of a careful church warden. He looked at the graves that were well tended, simple headstones with small squares of grass, as if the people in the bungalows carried on living in the same way after death, with just enough distance between them not to interfere but close enough never to be alone, not too much and not too big, just a clearly marked separate space.
    The churchyard was surrounded by a stone wall and trees that had been planted long ago and still stood at regular intervals, with enough space to allow for growth but still give the impression of a protective screen. Hoffmann went closer, sycamore maples with leaves that had just sprung and that moved in the breeze, which meant that the wind strength was between two and five metres a second. He looked at the small branches, they were moving too, between seven and ten metres asecond. He tilted back his head, trying to see if the bigger branches were moving, some way to go before it was fifteen metres per second.
    The heavy wooden door was open, and he entered a church that was too large: the white ceiling up high, the altar way back, it felt so big that the whole town of Aspsås could fit