Three Seconds

Grens was investigating.

Grens already had dangerous information.

And Grens would continue to dig and delve. The older man was glowing in the way that he sometimes did, when he was at his best.

'Infiltrator?'

'You… I don't think you've got anything to do with this.'

'Well, you've certainly whetted my curiosity.'

'Close the door when you leave.'

Wilson didn't protest, he didn't need anymore. He was already out in the corridor when Grens's voice cut through the dust.

'The door!'

Two steps back, Wilson shut the door and walked to the neighboring one.

Chief Superintendent Goransson.

'Erik?'

'Do you have a moment?'

'Sit down.'

Erik Wilson sat down in front of the man who was his boss and who was Grens's boss and who was also the CHIS controller in the city police district.

'You've got a problem.'

Wilson looked at Goransson. The room was big, the desk was big. Perhaps that was why he always looked so small.

'Have I?'

'I've just been to see Ewert Grens. He's investigating the killing at Vastmannagatan. The problem is that I'm not investigating, and I know considerably more about what happened than the appointed investigator does right now.'

'I don't understand why that should be a problem.'

'Paula.'

'Right?'

'Do you remember him?'

'I remember him.'

Wilson knew that he wouldn't need to explain much more.

'He was there.'

The automatic voice.

Twelve thirty-seven fifty.

Scraping sounds. Obviously somewhere indoors. The voice was tense, whispered, with no accent.

A dead man. Vastmannagatan 79. Fourth floor.

One more time.'

Nils Krantz pressed play on the CD player and carefully adjusted the speakers. By this point they both recognized the humming of a fridge that made it difficult to hear the last two words.

'One more time.'

Ewert Grens listened to the only link they had to a man who had witnessed a murder and then decided to vanish.

'Again.'

The forensic scientist shook his head.

'I've got a lot to do, Ewert. But I can burn a CD for you so you can listen to it as much and as often as you like.'

Krantz burned the sound file of the alarm call that was received by the County Communication Center a matter of minutes after the man had been shot onto another disc.

'What do I do with it?'

'You don't have a CD player?'

'I think Agestam gave me a machine once, after we'd had a small confrontation about a father who shot and killed his daughter's murderer. But I've never used it. Why should I?'

'Here, borrow this one. And give it back when you're done.'

'One more time?'

Krantz shook his head again.

'Ewert?'

'Yes?'

'You don't know how to use it?'

No.'

'Put on the headphones. And press play. You'll manage.'

Grens sat at the far end of the forensics department. He pressed a few random buttons and gingerly pulled at a rather long flex, and then jumped when the alarm voice was suddenly there again, in the headphones.

It was all he knew about the person he was looking for.

'One more thing.'

Nils Krantz gestured to his ears. Ewert had to take the headphones off. 'We've scoured Vastmannagatan 79. All the rooms. And we've found nothing that can be linked to the investigation.'

'Look again.'

'I’ll have you know that we're not sloppy. If we didn't find anything the first time, we won't find it the second time. You know that, Ewert.'

Ewert Grens did know that. But he also knew that there was nothing else, that right now he had gotten absolutely nowhere with the investigation. He hurried through the vast building with the CD player in his hand, toward the exit to Kungsholmsgatan. A few minutes later, he waved down a passing patrol car from the pavement, opened the door, got into the back seat and asked the astonished policeman to drive him to Vastmannagatan 79 and to wait for him there.

He made his way up to the fourth floor, stopping briefly in front of the door with a name plate with the Finnish name that Wilson had tried ro push him to discuss this morning, then continued on to the flat that was still being guarded by contracted security men in green uniforms. He looked at the big blood stain and the markers on the walls, but this time it was the kitchen that interested him and a spot near the fridge where Krantz was one hundred percent certain that the man had been standing when he called and raised the alarm. You sound calm despite the fact that you're frightened. He put the headphones on and pressed the two buttons that had worked the last time. You are precise, systematic, purposeful. The voice again. You can cut yourself off and carry on functioning, despite that fact that you're in the midst of chaos. Grens walked between the sink and the worktop, listening to someone who had been in exactly the same place and had whispered a message about a dead man while the people on the other side of the door stood next to the body that was still bleeding heavily. You're involved in the murder but chose to raise the alarm and then disappear.

'This thing is damn marvelous.'

He had rung Nils Krantz as he walked down the stairs.

'What are you talking about?'

'The machine that you lent me, Jesus, I can listen to it when I want, as many times as I want.'

'That's good, Ewert. Great. Speak to you again soon.'

The car was double-parked outside the front door, waiting, the policeman ready behind the wheel, with his safety belt still on.

Grens clambered into the back seat.

'Arlanda.'

'Excuse me?'

'I want to go to Arlanda.'

'This is not a taxi, you know. I knock off in quarter of an hour.'