Three Seconds

fetched big scissors from the cutlery drawer. With great care he straightened out one of the sleeves, stroked the material with the back of his hand until he was sure it was flat and then started to cut, quite a large piece, five, maybe six centimeters wide.

'Who gave you the orders?'

He held the first piece of material in his hand, felt the frayed edge. He smiled, Grens was convinced of it, an almost shy smile.

'Oscarsson, who?'

He cut as he had done before, straight, considerate lines, the rectangular pieces neatly on top of the first.

'Stefan Lygis. A prisoner you were responsible for. A prisoner who is now dead.'

'It wasn't my fault.'

'Pawel Murawski. Piet Hoffmann. Two other prisoners you were responsible for. Two other prisoners who are now dead.'

'It wasn't my fault.'

'Martin Jacobson. A-'

'All right, that's enough.'

'Martin Jacobson, a prison warden who-'

'For Christ's sake, Grens, that's enough!'

The first arm was ready. Pieces of material stacked in a small pile. Oscarsson pulled out the next one, shook it lightly, a crease more or less in the middle, hand backwards and forward across it until it disappeared.

'Pal Larsen.'

He cut again, faster now.

'General Director Pal Larsen ordered me.'

Grens remembered, about half an hour into the recording, a trouser leg scraping against the microphone as it stretched, and the sound of a teaspoon against porcelain when someone had taken a sip from a coffee cup.

'I appointed you. And that means that you decide what happens in the Prison and Probation Service.'

A short pause while the state secretary left the room to get the head of the Prison and Probation Service who had been sitting waiting outside in the corridor.

'You decide what you and I agree that you should decide.'

The general director had been given an order. The general director had passed that order on. From the real sender.

Ewert Grens looked at a bare-torsoed man who was cutting to pieces the uniform that he had longed for all his adult life, and he hurried out of the kitchen that would never change color and the home that was even lonelier than his own.

'Do you know what I'm going to do with these?'

Lennart Oscarsson stood in the open doorway as Grens got into his car. The recently shredded pieces in his raised hands, he dropped a couple and they fell slowly to the ground.

'Wash the car, Grens. You know, you always need clean bits when you're polishing, and this, this is damn expensive material.'

He dialed the number as the car rolled out of the silent rows of terraced houses. He looked at the church and the square church tower, at the prison and the workshop that could be seen behind the high wall.

Not even thirty-six hours had passed. It would haunt him For the rest of his life.

'Hello?'

Goransson had been awake.

'Difficulties sleeping?'

'What do you want, Ewert?'

'You and me to have a meeting. In about half an hour.'

'I don't think so.'

'A meeting. In your office. In your capacity as CHIS controller.' 'Tomorrow.'

Grens looked at the sign in his rearview mirror; it was hard to read in the dark but he knew what the town he had just left was called.

He hoped it would be a while before he had to return.

'Paula.'

'Excuse me?'

'That's what we're going to talk about.'

He waited, there was a long silence.

'Paula who?'

He didn't answer. The forest transformed slowly into high-rise blocks-he was getting close to Stockholm.

'Grens, answer me. Paula who?'

Ewert Grens just held his handset for a while, then hung up.

The corridor was empty. The coffee machine hummed, hidden by the dark. He settled on one of the chairs outside Goransson's office.

His boss would soon be there. Grens was convinced of it.

He drank the vending machine coffee.

Wilson was Hoffmann's handler. A handler records the informant's work in a logbook. The logbook is kept in a safe by the CHIS controller. Goransson.

'Grens.'

The chief superintendent opened the door to his office. Ewert Grens looked at the clock and smiled. Exactly half an hour since their conversation. He was shown into an office that was considerably larger than his own and sat down in a leather armchair, wriggled a bit.

Goransson was nervous.

He was trying hard to pretend the opposite, but Grens recognized the breathing, the pitch, the slightly exaggerated movements.

'The logbook, Goransson. I want to see it.'

'I don't understand.'

Grens was furious but hadn't thought of showing it.

He didn't shout, he didn't threaten.

Not yet.

'Give me the logbook. The whole file.'

Goransson was sitting on the edge of the desk. He waved at two walls of shelves, files on every shelf.

'Which goddamn file?'

'The file of the person I murdered.'

'I have no idea what you're talking about.'

'The snitch file.'

'What do you want it for?'

I am going to nail you, you bastard. I've got a day to do it.

'You know.'

'What I know, Ewert, is that there is only one copy of it, and it's in my safe, which only I have the code to, and there's a reason for that.'

Goransson gave a light kick to the safe, which was green and stood against the wall behind his desk.

As no unauthorized persons can see it.'

Grens breathed slowly. He had been about to strike out, balled fist that was halfway to Goransson's face when he caught it, the desire was so strong.

He released his cramping fingers, held them out, an exaggerated gesture perhaps.

'The file, Goransson. And I'll need a pen.'

Goransson looked at the hand in front of him, the gnarled fingers. An Ewert Grens who shouts, who threatens, I can deal with that. 'Can I have it?'

''What?'

'The pen.'