Three Seconds

on the phone last night and again this morning-and I can hear it, she knows that I'm lying, that I'm lying more than usual.'

'Take care of her. You know what I mean?'

'You know damn well that I take good care of her.'

'Good, that's good, Piet. Nothing you do is worth more than her and the kids. I just want you to remember that.'

He didn't like the instant coffee much, there was a stale aftertaste, reminiscent of the coffee in the more expensive restaurants in Warsaw.

'He should never have said he was the police.'

'Was he?'

'I don't know. I don't think so. I think he was like me. And that he was bloody frightened.'

Wilson nodded. He probably had been frightened. And in a panic had flung out the words that he thought would protect him. But had had the opposite effect.

'I heard him scream I'm the police, a gun being cocked and then a shot.' Hoffmann put his cup down-the instant coffee was undrinkable, no matter how hard he tried.

'It's been a while since I saw someone die close at hand. That silence when they stop breathing and you hold on to the last breath until it ebbs away.'

Erik Wilson was looking at someone who had been touched by death and lived with the responsibility for it; the rather lean man in front of him who could be hard as nails when he needed to be, was someone else right now It was three years since they had taken the first steps to infiltrate Wojtek Security International. The national crime operations division had identified the company as a flourishing branch of the Eastern European mafia that was already established in Norway and Denmark. The CHIS controller at City Police had forwarded the intelligence report to Wilson and reminded him of Paula's background, that Polish was his other mother tongue and that he was in ASPEN, the criminal intelligence database, and had a criminal record that was solid enough to withstand any checks and probing.

They were there now.

Paula had courage, authority, and criminal credibility, and had reached the top of the organization-he had communicated directly with the deputy CEO and the Roof in Warsaw, behind the facade of what was supposed to be a Polish security firm.

'I heard him cock the gun but wasn't quick enough.'

Erik Wilson looked at his infiltrator and friend, at the face that switched between Piet and Paula.

'I tried to calm them down, but could only go so far… Erik, I had no choice, you see that, don't you? I have a role to play and I have to do it bloody well, otherwise… otherwise I'm a dead man too.'

It was always unexpected; his face had become completely Paula now.

'It was him who didn't play his role well enough. Something wasn't right. You have to be a criminal to play a criminal.'

Erik Wilson didn't need convincing, he knew the score, that Paula risked death every day as a consequence, that people like him, squealers, were hated by their own. But still, without really knowing why, he wanted to test Piet's innocence before doing everything he could to ensure that he got criminal immunity.

'The shot…'

'What about it?'

'What angle?'

'I know what you're after, Erik. I'm covered.'

'What angle?'

Piet Hoffmann knew that Wilson had to ask his questions, that was just the way it was.

'Right temple. Left angle. Held to the head.'

'Where were you?'

'Directly opposite the dead man.'

Erik Wilson cast his mind back to the flat he had recently visited, to the parch on the floor and the flags on the wall, to a cone-shaped corridor where there was no blood or brain tissue.

'Your clothes?'

'Nothing.'

So far, the right answers.

There was no blood in the corner opposite the dead man.

The person who had fired the shot would have been sprayed with blood. 'Do you still have them? The clothes?'

'No. I burned them. To be on the safe side.'

Hoffmann knew what Erik was looking for. Proof.

'But I rook the killer's clothes. I offered to burn them and I saved the shirt. In case it was needed.'

Always on your own. Trust no one but yourself:

That was how Piet Hoffmann lived, that was how he survived. 'I guessed as much.'

'And the gun. I've got that too.'

Wilson smiled.

'And the alarm?'

'That was me.'

Correct answer again.

Wilson had twelve passed through the County Communication Center thirty-seven when he left Kronoberg and had checked fifty the recording.

'I listened to it. You were in a state. You had reason to be. But we'll sort this out. I'll start working on it as soon as we've said goodbye, in a while.'

Ewert Grens was tired of waiting. It was twenty minutes since their last conversation. How long did it take to verify a dead man's dental impressions and fingerprints? Jacob Andersen from Copenhagen had talked about an informer. Grens sighed. The national police authority's future vision: private individuals as covert human intelligence, much cheaper than detectives, and the police could get rid of an informer if necessary, burn them without any responsibility or militant unions. A future that was not his-he would have retired by then-when police work would be interchangeable with criminals who ratted on their own.

Twenty-four minutes. He phoned up himself.

'Andersen.'

'You're taking your bloody time.'

'Ah, it's you, Ewert Grens.'

'Well?'

'It's him.'

'You sure?'

'The fingerprints were enough.'

'Who?'

'We called him Carsten. One of my best infiltrators.'

'Not the damn code name.'

'You know how it works, as his handler, I can't-'

'I'm leading a murder investigation. I'm not interested in your hush-hush secrecy. I want a name, a personal identity number, an address.'

'You won't get it.'

'Civil status. Shoe size. Sexual orientation. Underpants size. I want to know what he was doing at the murder scene. Who he was working for. Everything.'

'You won't get it. He was one of several infiltrators involved in this operation. So you can't get any information whatsoever.'

Ewert Grens slammed the receiver down on the desk before shouting into it: 'So… let's see… first of all, the Danish police are operating on Swedish territory without informing the Swedish police! And when the shit hits the fan and the operation ends in a murder, the Danish police still don't give the Swedish police any information, even