Three Seconds

keep an eye on our debts.’
    ‘Don’t worry, man, I mean I’ve always—’
    ‘Good. We’ll find a solution then.’
    Faint steps thumping down the passage from Block H that quickly got louder. They could both hear them and the druggie had already started to walk away.
    ‘Do you work?’
    ‘Study.’
    ‘Where?’
    The skinny guy was sweating and his cheeks were twitching and rippling.
    ‘Fuck, does it—’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Classroom F3.’
    ‘You can order from Stefan from now on. And collect from him.’
    Two locked doors and the lift up to Block G. He pushed the trolley into the cleaning cupboard that stank of damp cloths, stuffed eleven of the small plastic balls into his pockets and left the rest under the crumpled documents. In an hour they would be passed to other hands in the various prison buildings and in each unit there would be consumers who knew about the new supplier and the quality and the price, and he and Wojtek would have taken over, the lot.
    They were waiting for him.
    Some in the corridor, a couple in the TV corner, evasive eyes full of hunger.
    He had eleven sales in his pockets for a unit that was like all the others: five were going to pay from cash that could be counted in millions, earnings from criminal activities that society seldom managed to stop; six didn’t have enough money to pay for the socks on their feet and would end up working for Wojtek on the outside to pay off their debt – they were an investment, criminal labour and he owned them.
    __________
    Fredrik Göransson sat on one of the national police commissioner’s sofas and listened to the voice on the other end of the telephone talk loudly, the initial low murmur had become clear words in short bursts.
     
    ‘
Mutual problem?
’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘
This early in the morning?
’
    The deep man’s voice sighed and the national police commissioner continued.
    ‘It’s about Hoffmann.’
    ‘
Well?
’
    ‘He’s going to be called in for questioning this morning, in one of the visiting rooms. A detective superintendent from City Police who’s investigating Västmannagatan 79.’
    He waited for an answer, a reaction, anything. He got nothing.
    ‘That interview, Pål, is not going to happen. Under no circumstances are you going to let Hoffmann meet a policeman as part of the preliminary investigation in connection with that address.’
    Silence again and when the voice responded, it was once more a low murmur that couldn’t be heard from a few metres away.
    ‘I can’t say any more. Not here, not now. Apart from that you’ve got to fix it.’
    The national police commissioner was sitting on the edge of the desk and it was starting to be uncomfortable. He straightened his back and there was a crunching sound from somewhere in his hip.
    ‘Pål, I just need a couple of days. A week maybe. I want you to do this for me.’
    He put the phone down and leant forwards, a few more crunches, sounded like his lower back.
    ‘We’ve got ourselves a few days. Now we have to take action. In order to avoid the same situation happening again in seventy-two or ninety-six hours.’
    They shared what was left in the coffee pot. Göransson lit another cigarette.
    The meeting a couple of weeks earlier in a beautiful room with a view of Stockholm had mutated into something new. Code Paula was no longer an operation that the Swedish police had worked on and waited for for several years, it now also involved a criminal counterpart who they did not know much about and who had knowledge that would have consequences far beyond that oblong meeting table if it were to be passed on.
    ‘So, Erik Wilson is abroad?’
    Göransson nodded.
    ‘And Hoffmann’s Wojtek contacts in the unit, do we know who they are?’
    Chief Superintendent Göransson nodded again, leant back a touch and for the first time since he sat down, the fabric felt almost comfortable.
    The national police commissioner looked at his face, which seemed calmer.
    ‘You’re right.’
    He lifted up the empty coffee pot to see if there was anything left. He was thirsty, he’d never really understood all the fuss about water with bubbles, but poured himself a glass as it was there and, because the room was full of cigarette smoke, found it refreshing.
    ‘If we let it out who Hoffmann is? If the members of an organisation find out there’s an informant among them – what the organisation does then with that knowledge is not our problem. We will not and cannot be