Three Seconds

by Anders Roslund

  He hadn't understood the desperation, hadn't anticipated the force of Hoffmann's fear.

  The riot squad had carried him down to where the bastard belonged, and he would stay there for a long time in the shirtiest of shitty cells. Lennart Oscarsson would file a report that afternoon, and a long sentence would become even longer. It didn't help. He felt his tender cheek with his fingers. It didn't change anything, didn't ease his frustration at having misread a prisoner.

  The iron bed, the cement toilet. No matter how long he waited, the cell was never going to be more than that. The dirty walls that had once been white, the ceiling that had never been painted, the floor that was so cold. He rang the bell again, kept his finger on the button long enough to irritate them. One of the guards would break in the end and hurry over to tell the prisoner who had assaulted the chief warden to stop ringing the bell or to look forward to days in a straitjacket.

  He was cold again.

  They knew. He was a snitch, he had a death threat. They would manage to get in here too. It was just a matter of time, as not even a carefully locked cell door could protect him. Wojtek had money and anyone could be bought when death was involved.

  The square hatch was some way up the door. It scraped and whined when it was opened.

  Staring eyes.

  "You want something?"

  Who are you?

  "I want to make a phone call."

  Guard?

  'And why should we let you phone?"

  Or one of them?

  "I want to call the police."

  The eye came closer, laughed.

  "You want to call the police? And do what? Report that you've just assaulted a prison warden? Those of us who work here don't have much time for that sort of thing."

  "None of your fucking business why and you know that. You know that you can't refuse me a phone call to the police."

  The eye was silent. The hatch was closed. Steps disappeared.

  Piet Hoffmann got up from the cold floor and threw himself over the button on the wall, held it in he guessed for about five minutes.

  Suddenly the door was pulled open. Three blue uniforms. The staring eyes that he now was convinced belonged to a guard. Beside him, another one, the same kind. Behind them, a third, with enough stripes for him to be a principal officer, an older man, in his sixties.

  He was the one who spoke.

  "My name is Martin Jacobson. I'm the principal officer here. Boss in this unit. What's the problem?"

  "I've asked to make a phone call. To the police. It's my damn right."

  The principal officer studied him-a prisoner in oversize clothes who was sweating and found it difficult to stand still-then looked at the guard with the staring eyes.

  "Roll in the phone."

  "But-"

  "I don't care why he's here. Let him phone."

  He crouched on the edge of the iron bed with the telephone receiver in his hand.

  He had asked for the city police every time he got through. More rings this time-he had counted twenty for both Erik Wilson and Göransson. Neither of them had answered.

  He sat locked in a cell that had nothing other than an iron bed and a cement toilet bowl. He had no contact with the world outside or the other prisoners. None of the guards outside his cell door had any idea that he was there on behalf of the Swedish police.

  He was stuck. He couldn't get out. He was alone in a prison where he had been condemned to death by his fellow prisoners.

  He undressed himself and stood there shivering. He waved his arms around and started to sweat. He held his breath until the pressure in his chest was more than pain.

  He lay face down on the floor, wanting to feel something, anything, that wasn't fear.

  Piet Hoffmann knew as soon as the door into the corridor opened and then shut again.

  He didn't need to see, he just knew-they were there.

  The heavy steps of someone moving slowly. He hurried over to the cell door, put his ear to the cold metal, listened. A new prisoner being escorted by several wardens.

  Then he heard it, a voice he recognized.

  "Stukatj."

  Stefan's voice. On his way to a cell farther down the corridor. "What did you say?"

  The guard with the eyes. Piet Hoffmann pressed his ear even harder to the inside of the cell door-he wanted to be certain that he heard every word. "Stukay, It's Russian."

  "We don't speak Russian down here."

  "There's someone who does."

  "Into the cell with you now, just get in!"

  They were here. Soon there would be more, every prisoner in solitary confinement from now on would know that there was a snitch here, stewing in one of the cells.

  Stefan's voice, it had been pure hate.

  He pressed the red button and he would continue to press it until the guards came.

  They had let him know they were there. Now it was just a question of when, of time. Hours, days, weeks, the pursuers and the pursued knew that the moment would come when there was no more waiting.

  The square hatch opened, but it was other eyes, the older principal officer.

  "I want-"

  "Your hands are shaking.

  "For fuck's sake-"

  "You're sweating heavily."

  "Telephone, I want-"

  "You've got a twitch in your eye."

  He was still pressing on the button. A piercing pitch that echoed in the corridor.

  "Finger off the button, Hoffmann. You've got to calm down. And before I do anything… I want to know what's up."

  Pier Hoffmann lowered his hand. It was eerily quiet around them. "I have to make another phone call."

  "You just made one."

  "The same number. Until I get an answer."

  The cart with the phone and telephone directory on it was wheeled in and the gray-haired principal officer dialed the number he knew by heart. He watched the prisoner's face the whole time: the spasms in the muscles around his eyes, his forehead and hairline that were shiny and dripping, a person who was fighting his own fear as he waited for a phone that was not answered.

  "You're not looking good."

  "I have to make another call."

  "You can do later."

  "I have to-"

  "You didn't get an answer. You can call again later."

  Piet Hoffmann didn't let go of the receiver. He held it in his hands that were shaking as he met the eyes of the warden.

  "I want my books."

  "Which books?"

  "In my cell. In G2. I have the right to have five books down here. I want two of them. I can't just sit here staring at the walls. They're on my bedside table. Nineteenth Century Stockholm and The Marionettes. I want them here, now."

  The prisoner didn't shake as much when he talked about his books. He calmed down.

  "Poetry?"

  "You got a problem with that?"

  "Not often that it's read down here."

  "I need it. It helps me to believe in the future."

  The flush on the prisoner's face had started to recede.

  "Then suddenly it hits me that the ceiling, my ceiling, is someone else's floor .”"

  "What?"

  "Perlin. Barefooted Child. If you like poetry, I can-"

  "Just get me my books"

  The older warden said nothing, just pulled the cart out of the cell and locked the heavy door. It was quiet again. Piet Hoffmann stayed on the cold floor and wiped his wet brow. He had twitches and spasms, he was shaking, he was swearing. He hadn't realized that it was visible, his fear.

  He had moved from the floor to the bed and lain down on the thin mattress that didn't have any sheets or covers. He was freezing and had curled up in his stiff, oversize clothes and eventually fallen asleep, dreamed that Zofia was running in front of him and he couldn't get close to her no matter how much he tried, her hand disintegrated when he touched it, she shouted and he answered but she couldn't hear him, his voice dwindled to nothing and she got smaller a
nd smaller, farther and farther away until she disappeared.

  He was woken by noise outside in the corridor.

  Someone was being escorted to the bathroom or the cage for some air, someone who had said something. He went over to the door, ear to the square hatch. It was another voice this time, Swedish, no accent, a voice that he hadn't heard before.

  "Paula, where are you?"

  He was sure that he'd heard it right.

  "Paula, you're not hiding are you?"

  The warden with the eyes told the voice to shut up.

  It had shouted in no particular direction, but just outside his cell, selected a specific listener.

  Piet Hoffmann sank down behind the door, sat there with his chest and chin against his knees, his legs weren't working.

  Someone had exposed him as a stukatj last night, he had been given a death sentence. But… Paula… he hadn't understood it, not until now, that this someone had also known his code name. Paula. Christ… there were only four people who knew the code name Paula. Erik Wilson had made it up. Chief Inspector Göransson had approved it. Only those two, for many years, only those two. After the meeting in Rosenbad, two more. The national police commissioner. The state secretary. No one else.

  Paula.

  It was one of those four.

  It was one of them, his protection, his escape-one of them had burned him.

  "Paula, we want to meet you so much."

  The same voice, farther away now toward the showers, then the same tired "shut up" from the wardens who didn't understand.

  Piet Hoffmann held his legs even tighter, pressed them into his body.

  He was already everyone's quarry. He was a snitch in a prison where informants were hated as much as sex offenders.

  Someone banged on their door.

  Someone screamed stukatj on the other side.

  Soon it would be as it always was when the shared hate was focused on one locked cell door. First, two who banged, then three and four, then more, minute by minute, hatred channelled into the hands that hit harder and harder. He put his hands to his ears, but the banging penetrated his head until he couldn't stand it anymore, he pressed the button and held it down until the noise of the bell drowned out the monotone rhythm.

  The square hatch opened. The principal officer's eye.

  "Yes?"

  "I want to make that phone call. And I want my books. I have to phone and I have to have my books."

  The door opened. The older principal prison officer came in, ran his hand through his thick, gray hair and pointed out into the corridor.

  "All that banging… has that got anything to do with you?"

  "No."

  "I've been working here for a long time. You're twitching, you're shaking, you're sweating. You're bloody frightened. And I think that's why you want to phone."

  He closed the door and made sure that the prisoner made note. "Am I right?"

  Piet Hoffmann looked at the blue uniform in front of him. He seemed friendly. He sounded friendly.

  Don't trust anyone.

  "No. It's got nothing to do with that. I just want to make a phone call now."

  The principal prison officer sighed. The telephone cart was standing at the other end of the corridor, so this time he got out his mobile phone, dialed the number of city police and handed it over to the prisoner who refused to admit that he was frightened and that the banging out there had anything to do with it.

  The first number. Ringing tone and no answer.

  Twitching, shaking, sweating, it all got worse.

  "Hoffmann."

  "One more. The other number."

  "You're not in a good way. I want to call a doctor. You should go to the hosp-"

  "Dial the fucking number. You're not moving me anywhere." Ringing tone again. Three rings. Then a man's voice.

  "Göransson."

  He had answered.

  His legs, he could feel them again.

  He had answered.

  He was just about to tell them, in a couple of moments they could start the administrative procedures that would mean freedom in a week.

  "Jesus, finally, I've been trying… I need help. Now."

  "Who am I talking to?"

  "Paula?"

  "Who?"

  "Piet Hoffmann."

  The silence didn't last that long, but it sounded like the phone had been put down, the electronic void that is empty, dead.

  "Hello? For fuck's shake, hello, where-"

  "I'm still here. What did you say your name was?"

  "Hoffmann. Piet Hoffmann. We-"

  "I'm very sorry, I have no idea who you are."

  "What the fuck… you know… you know perfectly well who I am, we met, just recently in the state secretary's office… I-"

  "No, we've never met. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a lot to do." Every muscle was tensed, his stomach was burning and his chest and his

  throat and when everything is burning you have to scream or run or hide or… "I'm going to call the hospital unit now."

  The telephone in his hand. He refused to let go.

  "I'm not going anywhere until I've got my two books."

  "The phone."

  "My books. I have the right to have five books in solitary confinement!"

  He loosened his grip on the cordless phone and let it slip out of his hand.

  It cracked when it hit the floor, plastic bits bouncing in every direction. He lay down next to them, his arms around his stomach and chest and throat, it was still burning and when everything is burning, you have to run or hide.

  "Did he sound desperate?"

  "Yes."

  "Stressed?"

  "Yes."

  "Frightened?"

  "Very frightened."

  They looked at each other. If we let it out who Hoffmann is? They had more coffee. What the organization then does with that knowledge is not our problem. They moved the piles of paper from one side of the table to the other. We will not and cannot be responsible for other people's actions.

  It should have been over.

  They had arranged a meeting for a lawyer with one of his clients that evening. They had burned him.

  And yet, not long ago, he had called from a cell, from prison. "Are you sure?"

  "Yes."

  "It can't have-"

  "It was him."

  The national police commissioner fetched the pack of cigarettes that was kept in a desk drawer and not to be smoked. He offered the open pack to his colleague, the matches were on the table and the room was immediately awash with white.

  "Give me one too."

  Göransson shook his head.

  "If you haven't smoked for two years, I don't want to encourage you." "I'm not going to smoke it. I'm just going to hold it."

  He felt it between his fingers, sorely missed and familiar-now it offered calm when he most needed it.

  "We've got plenty of time."

  "Four days. And one's already gone. If Grens and Hoffmann meet…, If Hoffmann talks… if-"

  Göransson interrupted himself. He didn't need to say more. They could both visualize the limping detective inspector, aging and obstinate, the sort who never gives up, who pursues the truth as far as he can and then some more when he realizes that a handful of colleagues have known it from the start. He would carry on and he wouldn't stop until he found the ones who had protected it and then buried it.

  "It's just a matter of time, Fredrik. An organization that gets hold of that kind of information and has the means will use them. It might take a bit more time when there's no contact with fellow prisoners, but the moment will come."

  The national police commissioner fingered the cigarette that wasn't lit.

  It was so familiar. He would soon smell his fingertips, hold on to the forbidden pleasure a bit longer.

  "But, if you want, we can… I mean, being locked away like that, in solitary confinement, it's a terrible place. No human contact. He should be moved back to the unit he came
from, to the men he's gotten to know-if he's suffering down there, he should… well, he should be with other prisoners. On… humanitarian grounds."

  He paused as he normally did in front of the window in the chief warden's office and looked out over his universe: the big prison and the small town. He had never been particularly curious about what might be elsewhere, what could be seen from here was all he had ever wished for. The reflection of the sun made the window a mirror and he gingerly touched his cheek, nose, forehead. He felt tender, it was hard to see properly in the darkened glass, but looked like the blue around his eye was already changing shade.

  He had misread him, a desperation that he hadn't recognized. "Hello?"

  The telephone on the desk had interrupted the feeling of his skin tightening.

  "Lennart?"

  He recognized the general director's voice.

  "It's me."

  There was a faint crackling in the receiver, a mobile somewhere outdoors and a strong wind.

  "It's about Hoffmann."

  "Okay.”

  "He's to go back. To the unit he came from."

  The crackling was now nearly inaudible.

  "Lennart?"

  "What the hell are you saying?"

  "He's to go back. First thing tomorrow morning at the latest." "There's a serious threat involved."

  "On humanitarian grounds."

  "He is not going back to that unit. He should not even be in the same prison. If he's going anywhere, it's away, express transport, to Kumla or Hall." "You're not going to express him anywhere. He's going to go back."

  "A prisoner who has been threatened is never sent back to the same unit." "It's an order."

  The two bunches of tulips on his desk had started to open, the yellow petals like lit lamps in front of him.

  "I was given an order to allow a late visit from a lawyer and I did it. I was given an order not to let a DS carry out an interview, and I did it. But this- I won't do it. If 0913 Hoffmann is sent back to the unit where he was threatened-"

  "It's an order. Non-negotiable."

  Lennart Oscarsson bent down toward the yellow petals, wanted to smell something that was genuine. His cheek brushed against a flower and tightened again; it had been a powerful punch.

  "I personally would have nothing against seeing him go to hell. I have my reasons. But as long as I'm head of this prison, it's not going to happen. That would only mean death and there have been enough murders in Swedish prisons in recent years, investigations that no one has seen and no one has heard of and bodies that are eventually hidden away as no one is actually that interested."