Burned

He looks at his fingers, before typing the words that have been smouldering inside him for so long. He knows that when he writes this, there is no return. He will have fired the starting pistol.

Dr Helge would probably tell me to wait, he thinks, until I’m absolutely certain that I’m ready. But I haven’t got time to wait. No one can say if Yasser Shah will be caught, or if Mahmoud Marhoni’s evidence will make Hassan and his gang do a Robert De Niro and disappear. No one can tell me when I can walk down the street without looking over my shoulder, or if my nights will be forever filled with sounds that prevent me from sleeping.

That’s why he writes: MakkaPakka: Actually, there was one thing.

He feels cold all over. 6tiermes7: You’re joking. What is it?

He takes a deep breath. Almost two years ago I stopped while I was going downhill, he thinks. I pulled the handbrake. He is like Ingvild Foldvik. He has been a zombie since the death of Jonas. But sometimes you need to release the brake, let yourself hurtle towards the abyss, to gain momentum to get back up again. He doesn’t know how far down it is, but this time he won’t stop until he hits the bottom. No matter how much it hurts.

Henning exhales and starts typing. MakkaPakka: I need your help.

He looks up at the ceiling. He isn’t sure why he does that. Perhaps he is trying to absorb what Pavarotti was singing about. His strength. His will. He looks up a long time; in his head he can hear Luciano’s voice again. All’alba vincero! vincero, vincero!

At dawn I shall be victorious.

He turns to the screen again. At that moment, he is filled by a resolve, the like of which he has never known. He writes the words with a determination that makes the hairs on his arms stand on end: MakkaPakka: I need help to find out who torched my flat.

There. The words are out, words only he has been thinking. The police concluded that the fire wasn’t suspicious. So Henning buried his words for nearly two years.

Now they are free.

And now that he has written them, now that he has started investigating the toughest story of his life, he might as well say them out loud. MakkaPakka: Please help me find my son’s killer.