Three Seconds

But the loud whispering.

'And a piece of paper.'

'Ewert?'

'A piece of paper.'

The gnarled fingers pointing at him.

He gave them a notebook and a pen, a red felt tip.

'You got a name from me half an hour ago. I know that that name is in the informant file. I want to see it.'

He knows.

Ewert Grens held the notebook against the armrest of the leather chair and wrote something. Handwriting that was normally difficult to read. But nor now. Five carefully written letters in red felt tip.

Grens knows.

Goransson went over to the safe, maybe his hands were shaking, maybe that was why it took so long to set the six digits, to open the heavy door, to take out a black, rectangular file.

`Are all the meetings between your handler and this Hoffmann recorded here?'

“ Yes .”

“And this is the only copy?'

'It's the copy that I keep as CHIS controller. The only one.'

'Destroy it.'

He put the black folder down in front of him on the desk and looked through the code names of criminals who were recruited to work as informants for the Swedish police. He had gotten halfway when he stopped.

I knew it was wrong and I said so.

'Grens?'

'Yes?'

I left her room.

'It's here. The name you're looking for.'

Ewert Grens had already got up and was standing behind his boss, reading over his shoulder, tightly written pages.

First the code name. Then the date. Then a summary of that day's short meeting in a flat that could be entered from two different addresses.

Page after page, meeting after meeting.

'You know what I want.'

I got out.

You can't have it.

'Give me the envelope, Goransson. Give it to me.'

With every logbook came an envelope with the informant's real name, sealed by the handler on the first day of the operation, a wax seal, red and shiny.

'Open it.'

I can walk out of this with my head held high.

'I can't do that.'

'Now, Goransson.'

Grens clutched the envelope in his hand, read the name that he had heard spoken for the first time only days ago, on a recording of a meeting in an office in the Government Offices.

Five letters.

The same name that he had just written on a note pad.

P-a-u-l-a.

He reached over for Goransson's letter opener, broke the seal and opened the brown envelope.

He knew it already.

But still the damned thumping in his chest.

Ewert Grens pulled out the piece of paper and read the name that he knew would be there. Confirmation that the person he had ordered to be shot really had worked for the city police.

Piet Hoffmann.

Piet.

Paula.

The Swedish code name system, first letter of a man's name became the first letter of a woman's name. The informant file was full of snitches called Maria, Lena, Birgitta.

'And now I want the secret intelligence report. About what actually happened at Vastmannagatan 79.'

The whispering again.

Goransson looked at the colleague he had never liked.

He knows.

'You can't have it.'

'Where do you keep the secret intelligence report? What actually happened at Vastmannagatan 79? That those of us investigating were not to know?'

'It's not here.'

'Where?'

'There's only one copy.'

' Jesus , Goransson, where?'

He knows.

'The county police commissioner has it. Our most senior officer.'

He limped badly, it wasn't the pain-it was years since he'd bothered about that-this was just how he walked, left foot light on the floor, right foot heavy on the floor, left leg light on the floor. But with anger as his motor, he thumped his right leg down harder on the surface and the monotonous sound was quickly carried by the walls in the unlit corridor. The elevator down four floors, right toward the escalator, through the canteen, elevator five floors up. Then that sound again, someone limping down the last stretch of corridor who stopped outside the door of the county police commissioner's office.

He stood still, listened.

He pressed down the handle.

It was locked.

Ewert Grens had stopped in his travels three times: first at the data support office and one of the Coke-drinking young men to collect a CD with a surprisingly simple and accessible program that could open all code words on all computers in two minutes; then at the small kitchen opposite the vending machine for a towel; and finally the maintenance office opposite the stores for a hammer and a screwdriver.

He wound the towel around the hammer several times, positioned the screwdriver in the gap between the upper door hinge and the pin, looked around in the dark one more time and came down hard on the screwdriver with the hammer until the pin was loose. He moved the screwdriver down to the lower hinge and the next pin, until the hammer blows released it. From there it was easy to separate the two hinges, to carefully rock the screwdriver back and forth between the door and the doorframe, to push the door back until the lock barrel slid out of its fixture.

He lifted the door and put it to one side.

It was lighter than he had imagined.

He had forced other doors during raids-a heart attack on the other side, scared children on their own-in order to avoid waiting for a locksmith who might never come.

But he had never broken into a senior police officer's room before.

The laptop was on the desk, just like his own. He started it, waited while the CD program identified and replaced the code words and then searched the documents as he had learned to do.

A couple of minutes was all he needed.

Ewert Grens re-hung the door on its hinges, coaxed the pins back in, checked that there were no scratches or splinters on the doorframe, and then walked away with the computer in a briefcase.