Three Seconds

was starting to get impatient, it was all in place, now all he needed to do was take the second step.
    Knock out all existing players.
    Take over
.
    ‘You there.’
    The door was open. Oscarsson was looking at him.
    ‘It’s fine to go in now.’
    Oscarsson was on his way to the neighbouring office, a woman who according to the sign on her door was something to do with finance. Piet Hoffmann nodded and went in, positioned the trolley by the desk and waited. One minute, two minutes. Oscarsson had still not come back, his voice intertwined with the woman’s when they laughed at something.
    He leant forwards towards the bouquets. The buds had opened enough, not completely open, but enough for fingers to pluck out the cut down, knotted condoms that contained three grams of chemical amphetamine, made with flower fertiliser rather than acetone in a factory in Siedlce, hence the strong smell of tulips.
    Piet Hoffmann emptied fifteen buds in one go, dropped the condoms into the black bin liner on his trolley, listened to the voices in the next room.
    He smiled.
    He would soon have completed Wojtek’s first delivery to the closed market.
    __________
    Göransson had drunk two glasses of mineral water and had painstakingly chewed each ice cube, a crunching sound that was not nice to listen to.
     
    ‘I don’t understand, Fredrik. Burn who?’
    ‘Hoffmann.’
    The national police commissioner found it difficult to sit still. He had felt it already when his colleague had walked straight into the room: something that he couldn’t put his finger on had barged its way in.
    ‘Would you like a coffee?’
    ‘Cigarette.’
    ‘But you only smoke in the evening.’
    ‘Not today, I don’t.’
    The packet of cigarettes was unopened and lying at the back of the bottom drawer of his desk.
    ‘It’s been there for about two years. I don’t know if you can smoke them any more, but it was never my intention to offer them to anyone. They were just meant to be there after every cup of coffee, when there’s a yawning hole in your stomach, just as proof that I hadn’t started again.’
    He opened the window as the first puff of smoke drifted over the desk.
    ‘I think it’s better if we keep it closed.’
    The national police commissioner looked at the man who was drawing hard on the cigarette and was right, so he closed the window again and breathed in a smell that was so familiar.
    ‘I don’t think you understand – we haven’t got much time. Grens will sit down opposite him and listen to the consequences of a meeting we should never have had. Grens will—’
    ‘Fredrik?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘You’re here. And I’m listening. Just calm yourself down now and give me the full picture.’
    Fredrik Göransson smoked until there was nothing left to smoke, stubbed out the cigarette, lit a new one and smoked it halfway down. He went back to the sinking feeling by the coffee machine and a detective superintendent who was following up a name that had popped up on the periphery of an investigation – someone who had worked for the official Wojtek and who, according to the authorities’ records, had been convicted of aggravated assault and still been given a gun licence, a name that was now serving a long sentence for drug offences and tomorrow morning would be questioned in connection with a murder at Västmannagatan 79.
    ‘Ewert Grens.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Siw Malmkvist?’
    ‘That’s the one.’
    ‘The sort who doesn’t give up.’
    The sort that never gives up
.
    ‘It’ll be a disaster. Do you hear, Kristian, a disaster?’
    ‘It won’t be a disaster.’
    ‘Grens doesn’t let go. Once he’s questioned Hoffmann … it’ll be us, the ones who legitimised all this, protected him.’
    The national police commissioner didn’t say anything, didn’t break out in a sweat, but he now understood the anxiety that had entered the room, the kind of anxiety that had to be chased off immediately so that it couldn’t grow.
    ‘Wait a moment.’
    He got up from the sofa and went to the phone, flipped to the back of a black diary and then after a while dialled the number he had been looking for.
    The ringing tone when he got through was louder than normal and could even be heard from where Göransson was sitting on the sofa … three rings four rings five rings … until a deep man’s voice answered and the national police commissioner pulled the mouthpiece in closer.
    ‘Pål? It’s Kristian. Are you alone?’
    The deep voice was