Three Seconds

a bit too far away, just a faint murmur, but the national police commissioner looked satisfied, gave a brief nod.
    ‘I need your help. We have a mutual problem.’
    __________
    Piet Hoffmann stood in front of the first locked security door in the passage between the administration block and Block G. The camera moved, central security changing the angle and zooming in on a bearded face of around thirty-five that was studied on the monitor, perhaps also compared with a photo in the prison files, a prisoner who had arrived a couple of days ago and was still just one of a whole host of criminals who had been given long sentences.
     
    He had been careful when emptying the bins to make sure that the contents lay on top of the big bin liner on the cleaning trolley, so that anyone passing who looked into it would see scrumpled up envelopes and empty plastic cups, not fifty condoms and one hundred and fifty grams of amphetamine. He had used the forty-two grams that were in the four library books to knock out the three main dealers in the prison and would now use what had been hidden in the buds of fifty yellow tulips for the first sales from the prison’s new dealer. In a few hours, all the prisoners in all the units would know that plenty of chemical drugs were now being sold and distributed by a new prisoner called Piet Hoffmann somewhere in Block G. He wasn’t going to sell more than two grams to any of them first time round, no matter how much they begged or threatened; Wojtek’s maiden fix had to be divided between seventy-five imprisoned drug addicts – their first debt with a ruler who would definitely demand it back. He would sell more in a few days once he had taken over the two prison wardens in Block F who were paid by the Greek to regularly smuggle in large amounts.
    The clicking sound, central security had finished checking him and opened the door for a few seconds. Hoffmann went through, turned right up the first side passage and stopped after a few long strides, about two and a half metres in. A five metre blind spot between two cameras. He looked around, no one coming from Block H, no one leaving the administration block.
    He rummaged around in the bin liner until he had fished out fifty condoms and emptied the contents into a black plastic bag on the hard floor. A small teaspoon from one of the cups in the governor’s office held exactly two grams if the powder was level; he divided up the drug into seventy-five small piles.
    He worked fast but meticulously, ripping the small white bags into strips and wrapping the two-gram piles in plastic; seventy-five portionsat the bottom of the big bin liner covered by the contents of the admin bins.
    ‘We said eight g, didn’t we?’
    He had heard him coming, a druggie’s steps, feet dragging on concrete. He knew that he would stand there and fawn.
    ‘Eight, that’s right isn’t it? We said eight?’
    Hoffmann shook his head in irritation.
    ‘What’s so bloody hard to understand? You’ll get two.’
    Every punter would be able to get at least one hit – today once again journey to a world that was artificial and therefore so much easier to live in. But no one would get enough to begin with to be able to sell on, no other dealers, no competition, the drugs would be controlled from a cell in the left-hand corridor, G2.
    ‘Fucking hell, I—’
    ‘You’ll fucking shut up if you want anything at all.’
    The skinny junky was shaking even more than he had been in the morning, his feet moving constantly, his eyes everywhere except for the face they were talking to. He was silent, held his hand out until he was given a small white ball and started to walk off before he’d even put it in his pocket.
    ‘I think you’ve forgotten something.’
    The skinny prick had a twitch by his eyes, the spasms increased and his cheeks rippled unrhythmically.
    ‘I’ll fix the money.’
    ‘Fifty kronor a gram.’
    The twitch stopped for a couple of seconds.
    ‘Fifty?’
    Hoffmann smiled at his confusion. He could ask anything from three hundred to four hundred and fifty. Now when there were no other suppliers, maybe even six hundred. But he wanted the news to pass through all the walls, and then they could raise it, when all the customers were on one list, the one that belonged to the prison’s sole supplier.
    ‘Fifty.’
    ‘Fuck, fuck … then I want twenty g.’
    ‘Two.’
    ‘Or thirty, maybe even—’
    ‘You’re in debt now.’
    ‘I’ll fix it.’
    ‘We