Three Seconds

came in. According to the documents, Hoffmann was not yet middle-aged, so this was someone else, considerably older and in a blue prison uniform.
    ‘Lennart Oscarsson. Governor of Aspsås.’
    Grens took his outstretched hand and smiled.
    ‘Well blow me down, the last time we met you were just a lowly principal officer. You’ve come up in the world. Have you managed to let any more go?’
    A few years in a couple of seconds.
    They were there, back to the time when Principal Prison Officer Lennart Oscarsson had granted a convicted, relapsed paedophile an escorted hospital visit, a nonce who had done a runner while he was being transported and murdered a five-year-old girl.
    ‘Last time we met, you were
just
a detective superintendent. And now … you still are?’
    ‘Yes. You need to make major mistakes to be kicked up the arse.’
    Grens stood on the other side of the table and waited for more sarcasm, something just as funny, but it didn’t come. He’d seen it as soon as Oscarsson entered the room – the governor seemed distant, unfocused, his mind elsewhere.
    ‘You’re here to talk to Hoffmann.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I’ve just come from the hospital wing. You can’t see him.’
    ‘I’m sorry, I notified you of my visit yesterday and he was fit as a fiddle then.’
    ‘They were hospitalised last night.’
    ‘They?’
    ‘Three so far. Soaring temperatures. We don’t know what it is. The prison doctor has decided that they should be barrier-nursed. They are not permitted to see anyone at all until we know what it is.’
    Ewert Grens gave a loud sigh.
    ‘How long?’
    ‘Three, maybe four days. That’s all I can say at the moment.’
    They looked at each other, there wasn’t much more to say and they were just getting ready to go when a piercing noise ripped through the air. The black square of plastic on Oscarsson’s hip flashed red, one flash for every loud bleep.
    The governor grabbed the alarm that hung on his belt and read the display, his face aghast at first, then stressed and evasive.
    ‘Sorry, I’ve got to go.’
    He was already on his way out.
    ‘Something has obviously happened. Can you find your own way out?’
    __________
    Lennart Oscarsson ran towards the stairs, down and along the passage towards the prison units. Checked the alarm display again.
     
    G2
.
    Block G, first floor.
    That was where he was.
    The prisoner he had just lied about on the explicit order of the head of the Prison and Probation Service.
    He had shouted at them and then sat down on the floor.
     
    They had reacted after a while – one of the screws had locked the door from the inside and stayed by the glass window to keep an eye on the men out in the corridor, and another had rung central security and asked for assistance from the prison riot squad to escort a prisoner to an isolation cell following a supposed threat.
    He had moved to a chair and was now partially hidden from the people circling outside who whispered
stukatj
sufficiently loud for him to hear as they passed.
    Stukatj
.
    Grass.
    __________
    The door to the national police commissioner’s office was open.
     
    Göransson knocked lightly on the doorframe. He was expected – a large silver thermos on the table between the sofas, open sandwiches in crumpled paper bags from the small breakfast café at the other end of Bergsgatan. He poured two cups of coffee and wolfed down a sandwich. He was hungry, the anxiety was draining him. He had walked down the corridor and slowly past Grens’s office, the only one where the lights were often on early in the morning, drowning everything in banal music. It was as empty as Göransson felt. Ewert Grens who normally slept there and was at his desk working as soon as it was light outside wasn’t there, he had already left for the prison in Aspsås, as early as he said he would yesterday.
Grens must not talk to Hoffmann
. A large piece of bread got stuck in his mouth and grew until he was forced to spit it out onto the paper plate.
Hoffmann must not talk to Grens
. He drank some more coffee, rinsing down what was still stuck.
    ‘Fredrik?’
    The national police commissioner had returned and sat down beside his colleague.
    ‘Fredrik, what’s wrong? Are you OK?’
    Göransson tried to smile but couldn’t, his mouth just wouldn’t do it.
    ‘No.’
    ‘We’ll manage to sort this out.’
    He took a bite of a sandwich, lifted up the cheese – something green underneath, pepper or maybe a couple of slices of