Three Seconds (34 page)

    Faces that were turned away, uniformed backs doing something. He held up his middle finger, that usually got them moving.

    Nothing. No one reacted, no one saw.

    The others still had an hour left of their afternoon stint in the classroom and workshop, the corridor was empty, the screws were some place else. Now.

    He walked toward the row of cells. A quick look back at nothing. He opened the door to number 2.

    The Greek's cell.

    It looked the same, the same damn bed and the same damn wardrobe and chair and bedside table. It smelled different, stuffy, maybe sour, but it was just as fucking warm and the air he breathed was just as dusty. A photo of a child on the wall, a girl with long dark hair, another photo of a woman, his daughter's mother, Hoffmann was convinced.

    If anyone opened the door.

    If anyone saw what he was holding in his hand right now, what he was about to do.

    He gave a start, just an instant-he mustn't start to feel.

    Not many injections or snorts-thirteen or fourteen grams-but enough in here, enough for a new judgment and extended sentence and immediate removal to another prison.

    Thirteen or fourteen grams that had to be put somewhere up high.

    He tested the curtain rail, pulling it carefully; it came loose on the first attempt. A bit of tape around the plastic bag and it stayed in place against the wall. It was easy to lift the curtain rail back.

    He opened the door and had a last look around the room-he stopped at the photo on the wall. The girl was about five, she was standing on a lawn, and in the background some happy children were waving. They were all on their way somewhere, a school trip, backpacks in their hands and yellow and red baseball caps on their heads.

    Her father wouldn't be here when she came to visit next time.

    Ewert Grens bent forward over the low workbench and the row of seven guns.

    Three Polish-manufactured Radom pistols and four hunting rifles. "In one gun cabinet?"

    "In two gun cabinets. Both approved."

    "He had a license for them?"

    "The very ones issued by city police."

    Grens was standing beside Nils Krantz in one of the forensic unit's many rooms that look like a small laboratory with fume cupboards and microscopes and tins of chemical preparations. He lifted up one of the pistols, held the plastic covered weapon in his hand, weighed it in front of him in the air. He was absolutely certain-the dead man lying on the sitting room floor had been holding one like this in his hand.

    "Two weeks ago?"

    "Yes. An office in a flat on Vasagatan. Serious drug offense."

    "And nothing?"

    "We've test-fired them all. None of them have been used for any other crime."

    "And Västmannagatan 79?"

    "I know that you hoped you'd get another answer. But you're not going to. None of these weapons have anything to do with the shooting."

    Ewert Grens hit his hand hard on the piece of furniture that was closest. A metal cupboard shuddered as the books and files fell to the floor.

    "I don't get it."

    He was about to hit the cupboard again when Krantz stood in his way to save it.

    Grens chose the wall instead-it didn't shudder as much but made just as much noise.

    "Nils, I don't bloody get it. This investigation… it's like I'm standing on the sideline the whole time, watching. So, you seized all his weapons? Twenty days ago? Damn it, Nils, there's something that's not right. Don't you understand, this bastard, he shouldn't have any guns at all, even less a license issued by us. Okay, it's ten years ago, but… given the conviction

    . I've never heard of such a serious criminal being given a permit."

    Nils Krantz was still standing in front of the metal cupboard. It was never easy to know if his colleague was done with thumping inanimate objects.

    "You'll have to talk to him then."

    "I'm going to. When I find out where he is."

    "In Aspsås."

    Ewert Grens looked at the forensic scientist who was one of the few people who had been in the building as long as he had.

    "Aspsås?"

    "That's where he's doing his rime. And it's a long sentence, I believe."

     He had sat in his new place in the TV corner this afternoon again and waited until his neighbors came back from the workshop and classroom one by one. They had played more stud poker and a couple of games of casino and talked about the bastard guards who had been on duty that morning and quite a bit about a bank job in Taby that had gone wrong and then got engrossed in a passionate discussion about how many times you could jerk-off on a gram of injected amphetamine. They had laughed raucously at several graphic descriptions of a speed hard-on, and Stefan as well as Karol Tomasz and a couple of Finns had bragged about having a boner and fucking for days, as long as there was enough strong whizz. After a while, Piet had given the Greek a vague nod and offered him a chair without getting any response; the man who sold and controlled the supply here, who had the highest status wasn't prepared to talk to a fish.

    A couple of hours more.

    The plastic bag would be sitting there behind the curtain rail and the hard fuckwit wouldn't know what had hit him before it was over.

     Ewert Grens stood behind his desk clutching the telephone receiver even though the conversation had finished some time ago now. He was holding a piece of paper that was stained with coffee and almond slice crumbs.

    Nils Krantz had been right.

    The name at the bottom of his short list
was
already in prison.

    He had been caught with three kilos of amphetamine in his car trunk, had been held on remand and in record time had been convicted and taken to the prison at Aspsås.

    Amphetamine that smelled of flowers.

    A distinct scent of tulip.

     He lay down on the hard bunk and smoked a cigarette. It was several years now since he'd rolled his own-not since the days when there were no children, as both he and Zofia had stopped the day they saw a centimeter-long life on a monitor; something that was barely visible but which was affected by every breath they took. He was restless, smoked too fast and soon lit another… it was hell just lying here waiting.

    He got up, listened, his ear to the hard cell door.

    Nothing.

    He heard sounds that weren't there. Maybe the faint clunking that frequently came from the pipes in the ceiling. Maybe someone's TV. He'd chosen nor to have one so that he didn't need to participate in the world outside.

    If everything went according to plan, they would come any minute.

    He lay down again, a third cigarette, it was good just to hold something in his hand. Quarter to eight. It was only quarter of an hour since lock-up, and normally it took about half an hour-they usually waited until everyone had settled.

    Everything was in place, just as he wanted it. He had had final confirmation in the bathroom that evening when the guards were waiting for everyone to go back to their cells. Both the plastic bags that until recently had been stowed some meters down one of the toilets' waste pipes at the end of a piece of elastic were now in Block H, hidden behind two curtain rails.

    Now.

    He was absolutely certain.

    Dogs barking eagerly, black shoes slapping on the corridor floor.

You'll get my name and personal details. So that you can put me in the right prison, give me the right work and make sure that at lock-up time exactly two days after I've arrived, there will be an extensive spot check of every cell in the prison.

    Farther down the corridor, the first cell doors were flung open.

    Loud voices clashed
as
one of the Finns started to shout and one of the guards screamed even louder.

    It took twenty-five minutes and eight cells before they got to him and a hand threw open his door.

    "Inspection."

    "You can suck my cock, you flicking screw."

    "Out of the cell, Hoffmann. Before you get what you want."

    Pier Hoffmann spat as they dragged him out into the corridor.
Criminal.
He carried on spitting as they checked all the cavities.
You have to be a criminal to play a criminal.
He stood outside the door in white, badly fitting boxers while two guards went into his cell and searched everywhere for what might be hidden, but couldn't be found.

    Two cells were inspected at the same time, always the two opposite each other, and there wasn't much room where the open doors met.

    Two guards in each cell, two guards outside to watch the prisoners who were swearing, mouthing off, threatening.

    He watched as the bedclothes were pulled off and shaken out, the wardrobe tipped forward and every shoe emptied, every sock turned inside out, the pile of six library books on the bedside table flicked through, several meters of floorboards taken up, pockets and seams on his trousers and jackets and tops pulled open at the stitching and the barking dogs let in and lifted up ro the ceiling and the lamp and the curtain rail when there was chaos on the linoleum floor.

What the hell…

With dogs. That's important.

With dogs? And what happens when we find what you've planted? To the fellow prisoner who you've wasted your drugs on?

    One more floorboard, under the sink.

    And behind the bedside lamp, the small hole in the wall for the wall plug.

    "Everything all right? You found anything? No? What a shame. You'll have to go jerk-off in some other cell. Or d'you want me to help you?"

    The guy opposite laughed. The guy beside him banged on his door and hissed
keep doing them up the ass, Hoffmann.

    They had heard.

    Piet Hoffmann sat down on the edge of the bunk when they locked the door again and went on to the next cell. There was half a cigarette under a pair of boxer shorts in the mess under the bedside table; he lit up and lay down.

    Ten minutes more.

    He smoked and scoured the ceiling, then the dogs began to bark.
"What the fuck, fucking hell, it's not mine, for fuck's sake!"

    The Greek in Cell 2 had a piercing voice, the kind that opened locked cell doors.

"What the fuck, that- you've planted that, you fucking bastard screws, I'm going to-"

    One of the security guards had lifted up the black dog that was now frantically pawing above the window behind the curtain rail. The plastic bag had been taped to the wall and contained fourteen grams of high quality amphetamine. The Greek was escorted down the corridor and out of the unit, shaking and swearing, and would be transported to Kumla or Hall the next day to serve the rest of a long sentence that just got longer. At roughly the same time, two more plastic bags with the same amount of amphetamine were found in two cells on the top and bottom floors of

    Block H and three inmates in all would now be spending their last night in Aspsås.

    Piet Hoffmann lay on the bed and could smile for the first time since he'd been inside the high walls.

    Right now.

    Right now, we've taken over.

Wednesday

    He had slept heavily for nearly four hours when it was darkest outside the barred windows and once the Finn two cells away had presumably calmed down. The jangling of keys had penetrated his brain and prevented him from sleeping every time the bastard rang the bell and demanded attention. The unit hadn't settled until a couple of the other prisoners had threatened a riot the next time a Finnish finger played with the bell,