Three Seconds

two boys whom he loved more than anything in the world, empty days when he had only himself to think of. He remembered it well, but felt nothing, he had never been able to comprehend how what had once been so important, so strong and so absolute, was suddenly meaningless as soon as someone small had come along, looked at him and called him Daddy.

He walked from one room to the other and kissed them each on the forehead. They were starting to get hot again, the fever burning on his lips. He went back down to the kitchen and sat on a chair behind Zofia and watched her back as she washed the dishes, which would then be put away in a cupboard in his home, her home, their home. He trusted her. That was what it was, he felt a trust that he had never dared dream of. He trusted her and she trusted him.

And she trusted him.

He had just lied to her. He seldom thought about it, it was habit. He always considered the plausibility of a lie before he was even conscious that he was going to lie. This time the lie had been reluctant. He sat behind her and it still felt unreasonable, demanding, hard to bear.

She turned around, smiled, stroked his chin with a wet hand. The hand that he so often yearned for.

But now it just felt uncomfortable.

Two clients, I'd forgotten about them. And they didn't have to sit in the back seat for long.

What if she hadn't trusted him? I don't believe you. What if she hadn't accepted his lie? I want to know what you've really been up to.

He would have fallen. He would have collapsed. His strength, his life, his drive, he had built it all up around her trust.

Ten years earlier.

He's locked up in Osteraker prison, just north of Stockholm.

His neighbors, his mares for twelve months-they all have their own way of living with the shame. They have carefully constructed their defense, their lies.

The man opposite, in cell 4, a junkie who stole to pay for his habit, who burgled fifteen houses a night in some suburbs, and his damned insistence that I never hurt children, I always shut the door to their room, I never steal anything from them; his mantra and defense to help him bear the shame, a home-made set of morals that made him seem a little better than he was, to himself at least, that kept self-loathing at bay.

Piet knew, just like everyone else knew, that the man in cell 4 had pissed on that morality long ago. He stole whatever he could sell, from the children's rooms as well, because the need for drugs was stronger than his self- respect.

And the man farther down in cell 8, who had been sentenced for assault so many times, who had devised another life lie, his own moral with another mantra, to keep himself afloat: I never hit women, only men, I would never hit a woman.

Piet knew, just like everyone else knew, that the man in cell 8 had separated word from deed long ago. He hit women too, he hit anyone who crossed his path.

Made-up morals.

Piet had scorned them, just as he had always held those who lied to themselves in contempt.

He looked at her. The soft hand had been uncomfortable.

He only had himself to blame. He had trampled all over his own morals, the very reason he was still someone he liked: my family, I will never use my family for lies, I will definitely never force Zofia and the boys to get caught up in my lies.

And now he'd done it, just like the man in cell 4 and the man in cell 8 and all the others he had despised.

He had lied to himself.

There was nothing left of him that he could like.

Zofia turned off the water-she was done. She wiped around the sink and then sat down on his knee. He held her, kissed her on the cheek, twice like she always wanted, he burrowed his nose in the dip between her neck and shoulder, staying where the skin was softest.

Erik Wilson opened an empty document on the computer that he only used after a meeting with an infiltrator.

M pulls a gun

(Polish 9mm Radom)

from shoulder holster.

M cocks the gun and holds it to

the buyer's head.

He tried to remember and write down Paula's account from their meeting at number five.

To protect him. To protect himself.

But more than anything, to have a reason for paying out police reward money, should anyone ask why and when. Without an intelligence report and the pot for rewarding information from the general public, Paula would not be paid for his work or be able to remain anonymous and off the official payroll, nor would any of his colleagues.

P orders M to calm down.

M lowers the gun, takes a step

back, his weapon half-cocked.

When the confidential intelligence report left his desk and was taken to the commissioner of the county criminal police, via Chief Superintendent Goransson, Wilson would delete it from the computer hard disk, activate the code lock and turn off the machine, which was not connected to the Internet for security reasons.

Suddenly the buyer shouts

'I'm the police.'

Erik Wilson wrote it, Goransson checked it and the county commissioner unit kept it.

If anyone else read it, if anyone else knew… the infiltrator's life was at risk. If the wrong people found out about Paula's identity and operations, it would be as good as a death sentence.

M again aims the gun

at the buyer's head.

The Swedish police would not strike this time. They would not arrest anyone, or seize anything. The Vastmannagatan 79 operation had had one single purpose: to strengthen Paula's position in Wojtek, a drug deal as part of Wojtek's day-to-day business.

P tries to intervene and

the buyer screams 'police.'

M holds the gun harder to

the buyer's head and pulls the trigger.

Every infiltrator had an as yet unspoken death sentence as his or her constant companion.

Erik Wilson read the last lines of the secret report several times. It might have been Paula.

The buyer falls to the floor, at a right

angle to the chair.

It might not have been Paula.

The person or persons who had worked on the Danish informer's background had done a lousy job. Erik Wilson had constructed Paula himself. Step by step, database by database.

He knew that he was good at it.

And he knew that Pier Hoffmann was good at surviving.

Ewert Grens waited in one of Copenhagen airport's beer-smelling bars drinking Danish mineral water from a brown paper cup.

All these people on their way somewhere armed with Toblerone and chocolate liqueur in sealed plastic bags. He had never been able to understand why people worked for eleven months of the year to save enough money to then go away in the twelfth.

He sighed.

He hadn't got any farther with the investigation. He didn't know much more now than he had when he left