Three Seconds

no matter how much they begged or threatened; Wojtek's maiden fix had to be divided between seventy-five imprisoned drug addicts-their first debt with a ruler who would definitely demand it back. He would sell more in a few days once he had taken over the two prison wardens in Block F who were paid by the Greek to regularly smuggle in large amounts.

The clicking sound, central security had finished checking him and opened the door for a few seconds. Hoffmann went through, turned right up the first side passage and stopped after a few long strides, about two and a half meters in. A five-meter blind spot between two cameras. He looked around, no one coming from Block H, no one leaving the administration block.

He rummaged around in the trash bag until he had fished out fifty condoms and emptied the contents into a black plastic bag on the hard floor. A small teaspoon from one of the cups in the governor's office held exactly two grams if the powder was level; he divided up the drug into seventy-five small piles.

He worked fast but meticulously, ripping the small white bags into strips and wrapping the two-gram piles in plastic; seventy-five portions at the bottom of the big trash can liner covered by the contents of the admin cans.

'We said eight g, didn't we?'

He had heard him coming, a druggie's steps, feet dragging on concrete. He knew that he would stand there and fawn.

'Eight, that's right isn't it? We said eight?'

Hoffmann shook his head in irritation.

'What's so bloody hard to understand? You'll get two.'

Every customer would be able to get at least one hit-today once again journey to a world that was artificial and therefore so much easier to live in. But no one would get enough to begin with to be able to sell on, no other dealers, no competition, the drugs would be controlled from a cell in the left-hand corridor, G2.

'Fucking hell, I-'

'You'll fucking shut up if you want anything at all.'

The skinny junkie was shaking even more than he had been in the morning, his feet moving constantly, his eyes everywhere except for the face they were talking to. He was silent, held his hand out until he was given a small white ball and started to walk off before he'd even put it in his pocket.

'I think you've forgotten something.'

The skinny prick had a twitch by his eyes, the spasms increased and his cheeks rippled unrhythmically.

'I'll fix the money.'

'Fifty kronor a gram.'

The twitch stopped for a couple of seconds.

'Fifty?'

Hoffmann smiled at his confusion. He could ask anything from three hundred to four hundred fifty. Now when there were no other suppliers, maybe even six hundred. But he wanted the news to pass through all the walls, and then they could raise it, when all the customers were on one list, the one that belonged to the prison's sole supplier.

'Fifty.'

'Fuck, fuck. then I want twenty g.'

'Two.'

'Or thirty, maybe even-'

'You're in debt now.'

'I'll fix it.'

'We keep an eye on our debts.'

'Don't worry, man, I mean I've always-'

'Good. We'll find a solution then.'

Faint steps thumping down the passage from Block H that quickly got louder. They could both hear them and the druggie had already started to walk away.

'Do you work?'

'Study.'

'Where?'

The skinny guy was sweating and his cheeks were twitching and rippling.

'Fuck, does it-'

'Where?'

'Classroom F3.'

'You can order from Stefan from now on. And collect from him.'

Two locked doors and the elevator up to Block G. He pushed the cart into the cleaning cupboard that stank of damp cloths, stuffed eleven of the small plastic balls into his pockets and left the rest under the crumpled documents. In an hour they would be passed to other hands in the various prison buildings and in each unit there would be consumers who knew about the new supplier and the quality and the price, and he and Wojtek would have taken over, the lot.

They were waiting for him.

Some in the corridor, a couple in the TV corner, evasive eyes full of hunger.

He had eleven sales in his pockets for a unit that was like all the others: five were going to pay from cash that could be counted in millions, earnings from criminal activities that society seldom managed to stop; six didn't have enough money to pay for the socks on their feet and would end up working for Wojtek on the outside to pay off their debt-they were an investment, criminal labor and he owned them.

Fredrik Goransson sat on one of the national police commissioner's sofas and listened to the voice on the other end of the telephone talk loudly, the initial low murmur had become clear words in short bursts.

'Mutual problem?'

'Yes.'

'This early in the morning?'

The deep man's voice sighed and the national police commissioner continued.

'It's about Hoffmann.'

'Well?'

'He's going to be called in for questioning this morning, in one of the visiting rooms. A detective superintendent from city police who's investigating Vastmannagatan 79.'

He waited for an answer, a reaction, anything. He got nothing.

'That interview, Pal, is not going to happen. Under no circumstances are you going to let Hoffmann meet a policeman as part of the preliminary investigation in connection with that address.'

Silence again and when the voice responded, it was once more a low murmur that couldn't be heard from a few meters away.

'I can't say anymore. Not here, not now. Apart from that you've got to fix it.'

The national police commissioner was sitting on the edge of the desk and it was starting to be uncomfortable. He straightened his back and there was a crunching sound from somewhere in his hip.

'Pal I just need a couple of days. A week maybe. I want you to do this for me.'

He put the phone down and leaned forward, a few more crunches, sounded like his lower back.

'We've got ourselves a few days. Now we have to take action. In order to avoid the same situation happening again in seventy-two or ninety-six hours.'

They shared what was left in the coffeepot. Goransson lit another cigarette.

The meeting a couple of weeks earlier in a beautiful room with a view of Stockholm had mutated into something new Code Paula was no longer an operation that the Swedish police had worked on and waited for for several years, it now also involved a criminal counterpart who they did not know much about and who had knowledge that would have consequences far beyond that oblong meeting table if it were to be passed on.

'So, Erik Wilson is abroad?'

Goransson nodded.

'And Hoffmann's Wojtek contacts in the unit, do we know who they are?'