Cook Disappeared on Ship in 1986 — 35 Years Later, His Body Found Behind Refrigeration Chamber…
**Year 2021.** A port in Turkey, the place where old ships go to die. Workers are cutting the cruise ship *Queen of the Fords* into scrap. Once enormous and white, now it is rusted and peeling. They open the lining of the service rooms near the discarded kitchen freezers. One of the cutters breaks through a layer of metal and comes across something soft.
The workers stop and knock on the wall. There is a gap that shouldn’t be there according to the blueprints. They cut away a large piece of the lining, move it aside, and look inside. In a narrow space about 70 cm wide, between the wall of the refrigeration chamber and the false wall, sits a man—or rather, what remains of him. The body is completely dry, turned into a mummy.
He wears the remnants of a cook’s apron. Thirty-five years of constant cold from the freezer have prevented him from decomposing. He has been here for 35 years in complete darkness, walled in, alive or already dead. To understand how he got there, we must go back to 1986, to the sea off Norway, aboard the same *Queen of the Fords*, when it still shone with its lights and tourists walked the decks.
And when one of the cooks, Rolf Johansen, simply disappeared, write in the comments what you think could have happened to the cook before learning the terrible truth. **Year 1986.** November. The *Queen of the Fjords* sails through the cold waters of the Norwegian Sea. It is not a luxurious transatlantic liner for millionaires but a working cruise ship.
It mainly transports middle-class Europeans to see the fjords. Tourists drink cocktails in the bars, watch evening shows, and photograph the rugged coasts. But beneath the gleaming decks, in the heart of the ship, another life of steel thrives, warm, smelling of food and machine oil.
It is the crew’s world, and the center of this world is the kitchen, or as it is called in the navy, the galley. It is a huge stainless steel room filled with the constant noise of exhaust fans, the hissing of pans, and the clatter of utensils. This is where Rolf Johansen worked. He was 47 years old. He was short, stocky, with perpetually tired eyes and slow, calm movements.
Rolf was an old-school cook. He had spent over 20 years at sea. He wasn’t a culinary genius; he didn’t invent new dishes; he was simply a reliable executive, a man who knew exactly how to prepare a thousand servings of mashed potatoes so that they were equally hot and edible for everyone.
He knew the ship like the back of his hand. He knew every creak, every turn in the labyrinth of service corridors. He was part of that ship, an element as indispensable as the engine or the anchor. He had a family on land in Bergen, a wife and two grown children. He spent 6 months at sea and then several months at home.
The usual life of a sailor. He didn’t drink, didn’t play cards, didn’t seek adventures. After his shift, he would go to his tiny cabin, read books, and listen to classical music cassettes. His colleagues considered him a bit reserved, but they respected him for his professionalism. He didn’t meddle in others’ affairs, and no one meddled in his.
The ideal crew member for a long voyage. But on that trip, tension built up in the kitchen. They had a new head chef, Sven Bjnstad. Young, ambitious, 15 years younger than Rolf. Sven had interned at trendy restaurants on land and had now come to impose order on the ship. He considered the methods of the old guard like Rolf to be outdated.
He wanted to optimize processes. That nice word actually meant one simple thing: save money. Sven constantly picked on Rolf, saying the sauce was too greasy, that the meat wasn’t cut at the right angle, but they were trivial matters. The real conflict began over the supplies.
Rolf was responsible for receiving and recording part of the provisions, mainly frozen meat and vegetables. He had been doing this for decades. He had his own order, his own system, and he knew exactly how much and what was needed for each voyage. But Sven began to interfere. He started ordering products from new, cheaper suppliers. The quality began to decline.
Rolf saw that they were bringing in lower-quality meat and vegetables nearing expiration, but on the documents, everything was listed as top-quality products. The price difference, he believed, was going somewhere along the way, and most likely it was ending up in Sven’s pocket. Rolf tried to calmly talk to the boss several times without accusations.
He simply pointed out the facts. “Here’s the delivery note, and here’s what we received. It doesn’t match.” Sven ignored him. He said Rolf didn’t understand anything about modern business, that the important thing was the financial outcome of the company. “Your job is to stand in front of the stove and do what you’re told, old man,” he snapped at him once.
Tension was rising. The entire kitchen staff could see it. They split into two camps. The young ones supported Sven; they found him progressive. With him, they could negotiate a more convenient schedule. The older ones, like Rolf, stayed silent, but it was clear they were on his side.
They saw that Sven was breaking a system that had worked for years, but no one wanted to confront the bosses. Among the young ones was a boy, Eric. He was 19 years old. He worked as a kitchen assistant. He peeled potatoes and washed pots. He respected Rolf. He never shouted at him. Sometimes he taught him how to do things right, and he was afraid of Sven.
The boss was brusque; he could humiliate him over the slightest thing. Eric tried to stay under the radar, but he heard everything. He heard Rolf tell another older cook that he wouldn’t let it go, that at the next port call in Tromsø, he would go ashore and file an official complaint with the company office with evidence, with copies of the delivery notes he had secretly made.
“Stealing from the company and feeding people with… I’m not going to participate in this,” Rolf said. And then came the afternoon of November 12. The ship was sailing in open sea, more than a day away from the nearest port. There was a storm, not very strong, but noticeable. The passenger decks were closed. In the kitchen, the night shift was ending.
They were preparing a late dinner for the crew and making preparations for breakfast. The atmosphere was tense. In the afternoon, Sven picked on Rolf again over a trivial matter. They argued heatedly, almost shouting in the room. Sven called Rolf a senile old man clinging to his position. Rolf replied that some ambitious young people would be willing to sell their own mother for an extra crown. Everyone heard it.
Around 10 PM, the main work was done. The cooks began to leave. Rolf, as usual, was the last to finish. He had to check the freezers and make notes in the log. The enormous freezers were in a separate block at the bottom of the ship, next to the technical rooms. Long, poorly lit corridors led there. Eric, the young assistant, was mopping the kitchen floor. He saw Rolf take a folder with some papers and head towards the freezers. A few minutes later, Sven went to the same place. Eric didn’t think much of it. The boss often checked the stores. The boy finished cleaning, turned off the light, and went to his cabin.
He was the last to see Rolf Johansen. Well, or almost the last. The next morning, Rolf didn’t show up for work. It was inconceivable. In 20 years, he had never overslept. His substitute waited 15 minutes and then reported to Sven. The head chef reacted strangely; he wasn’t surprised or worried, he simply said irritably, “He’s probably drunk. Find someone to replace him.” But Rolf didn’t drink. Everyone knew that.
The assistant to the personnel captain decided to check. He went to Rolf’s cabin. The door was locked. No one answered when he knocked. They opened it with the service key. Everything was in perfect order. The bed was made. There was a book on the nightstand and clothes in the wardrobe. Nothing was missing. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
It was as if the man had stepped out for 5 minutes and was about to return at any moment. Then the alarm began. A general search was ordered, not for the passengers, only for the crew. All compartments, all decks, all cabins were searched. They repeated Rolf Johansen’s name over the intercom again and again, but he didn’t respond. Sven Bernstad participated in the search.
He seemed worried. He personally checked the kitchen, the stores, and the freezers. He told everyone that Rolf hadn’t been himself lately, that he was distracted. He insinuated that the old man might have personal problems. The search continued for several hours. A ship is a huge floating city with thousands of corners. But Rolf was nowhere to be found. Then the captain made the most logical and straightforward decision. He looked at the stormy sea through the window, the weather records, the wind, the waves, and concluded it was an accident. Rolf Johansen had gone out to the technical deck to smoke at night, even though it was prohibited.
He slipped on the wet metal or was swept away by an accidental wave. The chances of surviving in the freezing water in that weather were nil. It made no sense to search for him at sea. The captain made an entry in the logbook. On November 12, at approximately 11 PM, while fulfilling his duties or immediately after, cook Rolf Johansen fell overboard. The search on board yielded no results due to weather conditions. It is impossible to conduct a search operation at sea. He is considered missing. The case was closed. For the crew, it was a tragic but understandable story. The sea takes people. It has always been so. An official notification was sent to Rolf’s family on land. The ship continued its journey.
Sven Bernstad quickly found a replacement for Rolf. Life in the kitchen went on. After a couple of weeks, almost no one remembered the story. Only the young Eric felt uncomfortable. He remembered the argument. He remembered how Rolf, followed by Sven, headed towards the freezers. The next day he saw that Sven wasn’t so worried as he was active, as if he were solving a problem instead of searching for someone. But what could he say? What did he think? That he had a bad feeling, a 19-year-old dishwasher against the head chef and the official version of the captain. He said nothing; fear and insecurity made him silent. Meanwhile, just a few meters from the bustling kitchen, in the cold and eternal darkness, behind a false wall that Sven had built one night with a spare sheet of lining and some screws, lay the corpse of Rolf Johansen.
The conflict that night in the refrigeration chamber was quick and violent. Rolf had gone there to double-check the stocks and prepare the documents for the complaint. He didn’t know that Sven had followed him. The chef knew that Rolf wasn’t joking, that he was really going to go all the way, and that meant the end of Sven’s career, an accusation of theft, and possibly prison. For an ambitious young man, it was the end of the world. He tried to take the folder from Rolf. A struggle ensued in the narrow space between the frozen meat shelves. Sven, younger and stronger, pushed Rolf. He flew backward, hit his head against the corner of a metal shelf, and fell to the ground.
The blow was fatal. Rolf died almost instantly. Sven stood frozen in horror. He hadn’t intended to kill. It was a fit of rage, the desire to silence the old man. For a few minutes, he stood beside the corpse, unable to believe what he had done. But then fear gave way to cold calculation. Calling the captain, telling the truth would mean prison, certain prison. And he began to think. His gaze fell on the back wall of the freezer. He knew the structure of the ship. He knew that behind that wall was a small technical space, a gap of about 70 cm that ran the entire compartment, the perfect place to hide something forever.
All night, while the crew slept and the ship swayed with the waves, Sven worked. He found a thin steel sheet in the service room that was used for small repairs. He found tools. He dragged Rolf’s body into that gap. It wasn’t easy, but the adrenaline gave him strength.
Then he fixed the metal sheet to the wall, creating a false panel. He was a good handyman; he had golden hands. He adjusted everything so that the joints were hardly visible. He painted the screws the same color as the wall. It looked like a normal part of the structure. No one would ever notice. The constant cold of the freezer would do its job, slowing decomposition, and the noise of the compressors would drown out any sound if Rolf was still alive. By morning, everything was ready.
Sven returned to his cabin, destroyed Rolf’s folder, and went to sleep. The next day, he played the role of the concerned boss and did it perfectly. No one suspected anything. The story of falling overboard satisfied everyone. Years passed. Sven Bernstad had a brilliant career. A few years later, he left the *Queen of the Fords*. He worked as a chef on more prestigious cruises and then opened his own successful restaurant in Oslo. He became a respected man, a restaurateur, and even appeared on cooking shows on television from time to time. He married and had children.
He had almost forgotten that night in November 1986—almost. Sometimes, waking up in the middle of the night soaked in cold sweat, he would see Rolf’s face again and feel the icy chill of the refrigeration chamber, but that happened less and less frequently. The past was well buried. The *Queen of the Fjords* was also aging. It had undergone several modernizations. That refrigeration chamber had long been disconnected and turned into a normal storage room, but no one touched the wall. Why would they? It was just a wall. In the early 2000s, the transatlantic ship was sold to another company. It changed its name and then changed it again.
And so, in 2021, it was finally decommissioned and sent on its last journey to the Turkish port to be turned into scrap. For 35 years, the secret remained hidden in its steel belly. And if it hadn’t been for a worker’s cutter, it would have ended up in the smelter along with the ship. But fate had other plans.
The news of the discovery in the Turkish port first appeared as a small note in the police chronicle. They find a mummy in an old ship. It sounds like a sensationalist press headline. The Turkish police begin to investigate but soon find themselves at a dead end. The body had remained in the wall for decades. It wasn’t their jurisdiction. Bureaucratic paperwork began. Requests were sent to Norway since the ship had been built there and had sailed for a long time under the Norwegian flag. The case was referred to the Kripos, the Norwegian judicial police. The case reached the desk of Inspector Joacón Larsen. Joacón is nearly 60 years old; he has seen it all.
Gang confrontations, domestic murders, complex financial plots. He is tired; he has a couple of years left until retirement and doesn’t expect anything interesting. And then a mummy appears in the wall of a ship. A case with no witnesses, no clues, separated from him by an abyss of 35 years.
Most of his colleagues would consider it a dead-end case that could be quietly archived. But something catches Joacón’s attention. This story didn’t add up. The man hadn’t died; he had simply been hidden with great effort, calculated and coldly, and whoever had done it was probably still living a normal life. The first task was to identify the corpse.
It was taken to Oslo. Forensic experts worked for several weeks. The results were surprising. Thanks to the constant cold and dryness, the tissues not only preserved but had barely changed. The cause of death was quickly determined. A fracture of the base of the skull caused by a blow with a hard, blunt object. It was murder or at least homicide due to negligence. They had struck the man and then wall him up. Next came the work with the files. Joacón and his young partner Ingrid reviewed all documents related to the *Queen of the Fords*. They found the entry in the ship’s log from November 1986.
Cook Rolf Johansen allegedly fell overboard. The name matched. They found an old photograph of Rolf in his personal file. They compared it with the skull; they matched. Then they found his children, a man and a woman who were now over 50 years old. They provided DNA samples. A few days later, confirmation arrived. The mummy in the wall was Rolf Johansen, a cook who had been considered dead at sea for 35 years. For the family, it was a shock. All their lives, they had thought their father was a victim of the elements, and now it turned out he had been murdered and hidden like garbage.
Their pain and confusion gave Joacón additional motivation. Now it was no longer just a strange case. It was about bringing justice to Rolf and his family. The most difficult stage began: the search for witnesses. Joacón obtained the complete crew list for that voyage. 148 names: sailors, waiters, stewards, mechanics, people from all over Scandinavia, some from Germany and the Philippines. Thirty-five years had passed. Some had died, others had changed their names, and others had moved to the other side of the world. Joacón and Ingrid began methodically calling all the numbers. The first dozens of conversations were useless. “Yes, I worked on the *Queen of the Fords* in ’86. I don’t remember. Rolf Johansen? I remember there was a cook like that. He was very quiet. He didn’t drown. What a horrible story. A fight in the kitchen. There were fights every day there. It’s the job on a ship.” People remembered the fact of the disappearance but not the details. Human memory is not a hard drive. It erases everything it considers irrelevant. Joacón listened patiently to everyone.
He asked the same questions, but he got no answers. It seemed that the murderer had calculated everything perfectly. Not only had he hidden the body, but he had hidden his crime in the collective amnesia of the entire ship. On the list of kitchen employees from that time, there were 12 people. Joacón focused on them. They worked side by side with Rolf. They must have seen something, heard something. He found almost all of them. The former cooks, now over 70, confirmed that Rolf had a conflict with the new boss, Sven Bjnstad, but no one remembered the details. Sven was impulsive, Rolf stubborn; it was the usual, said one of them.
The name of Sven Bernstad began to appear more frequently. Joacón investigated him and was surprised. Sven Bernstad was a famous man in Norway. Owner of a chain of luxury restaurants, a media personality, a culinary expert, with an impeccable biography, with not a single stain. Joacón watched several of his interviews—a confident, charismatic, and successful man. It was hard to imagine that this man could be involved in a murder, but there was one person on the kitchen list they couldn’t find. Eric Larsen. In 1986, he was 19 years old, a kitchen assistant. His trail was lost in the early 90s. He left the navy, and nothing more was known about him.
Ingrid, Joacón’s partner, spent two weeks reviewing databases and finally found him. He had changed his mother’s surname to his father’s. He was now named Eric Hansen. He lived in a small village in northern Norway and owned a small mechanic shop. Joacón decided to go see him in person. He arrived on a rainy, gloomy day.
Eric Hansen turned out to be a grim man in his 50s with oil-stained hands. When Joacón introduced himself and explained why he had come, Eric shut down. “I don’t remember anything. That was 100 years ago.” “We found the body of Rolf Johansen,” Joacón said calmly. “He wasn’t thrown overboard. He was murdered and walled up on the ship.”
Eric shuddered, looked away, and wiped his hands with a rag. “I don’t know anything about that.” “You worked in the kitchen. You were there that night. Remember, Eric, it’s important.” Joacón was a good psychologist. He could see that Eric wasn’t lying. He was afraid. He was hiding something, not out of malice, but from the fear he had lived with for 35 years. They talked for over an hour. Joacón didn’t pressure him; he simply talked about Rolf’s family, about how they wanted to know the truth. And finally, Eric broke down, sat on an old tire, covered his face with his hands, and spoke. He told everything about the dispute over the food, about how Rolf was going to file a complaint against Sven, about the last fight that everyone heard, and about that night. “I was finishing mopping the floor,” Eric said in a trembling voice. “Almost everyone had left. I saw Rolf heading to the freezers. He had a blue folder. I think the papers were in there.”
A few minutes later, I saw Sven. He was angry. “Did you hear anything? Shouting? Sounds of a struggle?” Joacón asked. “You couldn’t hear the compressors; you couldn’t hear anything. I went to sleep. The next day, Rolf was gone.” Eric fell silent and then added the most important part. “Everyone was in a panic; they were looking for him, and Sven—he wasn’t in a panic; he was serious. He was directing the search in the kitchen, and I remember he told the second captain, ‘I’ve personally checked all the freezers and stores. He’s not there.’ He said it with such confidence, too confident, as if he knew for sure they wouldn’t find him there. And then, when they announced that Rolf had fallen overboard, I saw his face. He looked relieved.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Joacón asked gently. “I was 19,” Eric exclaimed, almost shouting. “I was nobody, a dishwasher. And he was the head chef. The boss. Who would believe me? I would have been fired, and that would be it. I was scared and stayed quiet. I’ve remembered it my whole life. My whole life I’ve felt ashamed.”
Now Joacón had a key witness. Eric’s testimony turned Sven Bernstad from someone who simply had a conflict with the murdered man into the main and only suspect. He had a motive, the fear of being discovered. He had the opportunity. He was the last to follow Rolf to the place where he was most likely killed. But 35 years later, a witness’s testimony wasn’t enough. Material evidence was needed. Joacón reviewed the file again. Fortunately, the Turkish police had done a professional job. They didn’t just cut a piece of the wall with the body. They cut the entire compartment, the whole structure, the false wall, and part of the actual freezer wall and sent it to Norway as material evidence.
The forensic experts returned to work, but now they knew what to look for. They examined the metal sheet that had covered the hole. It was a standard replacement sheet from the ship’s reserves. Only a small group of people had access to them, including the senior kitchen officers. They began to examine the fastenings, the screws, and beneath the head of one of the screws, in a layer of old paint, they found what they no longer expected to find: a fragment of a fingerprint, incomplete, smudged, but modern technology works miracles.
The fingerprint was entered into the database; there were no matches. Then, Joacón obtained a warrant to collect fingerprint samples from Sven Bernstad under the pretext that as a former head chef, he could help identify objects from the past. Sven agreed without any problem; he was confident. A week later, Joacón received a call from the laboratory. The fragment of the fingerprint found on the screw with which Rolf Johansen’s body had been walled up 35 years ago matched 99% with Sven Bernstad’s right thumbprint. It was a victory. They had everything: the corpse, the cause of death, a witness, a motive, and now direct evidence linking the suspect to the concealment of the body.
Joacón Larsen sat in his office looking at the board where photos of Rolf and Sven were pinned: an old, tired cook and a successful, smiling restaurateur. The difference between them wasn’t just 35 years; it was the difference between the victim and his murderer, who had lived all this time as if nothing had happened. Joacón took his ID from the table and tucked it into his jacket pocket. “Ingrid, let’s go,” he said to his partner. “It’s time to talk to Mr. Bernstad.”
They didn’t go to his luxurious office; they went to his flagship restaurant in downtown Oslo. In the evening, when the place was full of customers, Joacón wanted to look him in the eye in that environment that Sven considered his fortress. They entered without paying attention to the hostesses and headed straight for the open kitchen, where Sven, dressed in a white apron, personally supervised the service of the dishes. Upon seeing the police, his smile faltered for a moment. Joacón approached him. Around him, oil sizzled, plates clinked, and waiters shouted orders. But in the midst of that controlled chaos, silence reigned.
“Sven Bernstad.” Joacón’s voice was low but firm. “Inspector Joacón Larsen from the police. We need to talk. We need to talk about the voyage of the *Queen of the Fjords* in 1986 and about a cook named Rolf Johansen. We’ve found him.” Sven Bernstad’s face froze for a second, turning into a mask. The professional smile disappeared, replaced by a cold, impenetrable expression. The employees and cooks, seeing the strangers, stood still. The noise of the kitchen faded away.
Sven slowly took off his white jacket and hung it carefully. “Of course, Inspector,” he says in a calm, serene voice, without a hint of surprise. “I understand. Let’s go to my office. There, no one will disturb us.” “We’re going to the police station,” Joacón replies with the same calmness. “The car is waiting.” It’s the first blow. Joacón hasn’t let him play on his turf. In his office, Sven is just a man who has been brought in for questioning.
Sven tightens his lips for a moment but quickly regains his composure. He nods. “As you say.” They cross the entire restaurant. Customers turn to look. Some recognize the famous restaurateur accompanied by two grim-looking men in plain clothes. For Sven, this path is a path of shame. Every second, every curious glance is a small humiliation, but he stands firm. With his back straight and chin raised, he continues to play his part, the role of a man who has experienced an unfortunate misunderstanding.
They arrive at the Kripos police station, a gray, anonymous interrogation room, a table, three chairs, a camera in the corner, nothing of noble wood or leather like in his office. Here everything is real, everything is authentic. Sven is offered a lawyer; he declines. It’s part of his game. “I have nothing to hide.” Joacón begins the interrogation. He speaks slowly, methodically. He goes over the events of 1986 again and again. Sven responds fluently, without hesitation. “Yes, I remember Rolf. He was a good cook but a bit outdated. We didn’t always agree on our vision of the job, but that’s normal. Creative differences.”
“Creative differences over the supply of products,” Joacón clarifies. “I optimized expenses. It’s my job as head chef. Rolf didn’t understand that. He thought I was trying to save on quality, but that wasn’t the case. I found the best suppliers at the best price. He didn’t like it; he was a man of habits.” “He was going to file a complaint against you.” “It’s possible,” Sven shrugs. “He was offended. People do stupid things when they’re offended. I regret that it ended this way. Falling overboard is a horrible death.”
“You’re lying.” He lies calmly, looking directly into his eyes. He has rehearsed that lie in his head for 35 years. He has perfected it to perfection. He almost believes it himself. Joacón listens patiently, letting him speak, building his fortress of lies. “We spoke with Eric Hansen; do you remember him?” “Eric Larsen, the kitchen assistant.” Sven’s face doesn’t change, but he pauses, a fraction of a second longer than necessary. “Eric, I think so. He was just a kid. He washed pots.”
“Do you remember your last conversation with Rolf, a loud conversation? Do you remember following Rolf to the freezers and his face the next day? He says you looked relieved.” Sven smiles disdainfully, coldly, dismissively. “Inspector, are you going to base the case on the memories of a dishwasher from 35 years ago? The kid wanted attention. That’s all. Or his memory simply distorted the facts. It was a difficult day for everyone.” Sven stands firm, rejecting all attacks. He is confident that the police have nothing but the words of a frightened old man.
Joacón understands that it’s time to get to the important part. Silently, he places the folder on the table, opens it, and pulls out the photographs. They are not photos of the discovery site; they are photos taken in the morgue. Close-ups, the mummified face of Rolf, his hands, his body immobilized in the same position in which he spent 35 years. “He wasn’t swept away by a wave, Sven,” Joacón says softly. “Here he is. We found him behind the wall in the same refrigeration chamber that, by your own words, you personally checked.”
Sven looks at the photos, and for the first time, his self-control cracks; he pales, his breathing becomes labored. It’s one thing to talk about an abstract accident and quite another to see the result of his actions, to see what he had hidden so meticulously. “It’s horrible,” he whispers. “Who could do something like this?” “That’s what we want to know,” says Joacón, putting away the photos and pulling out others. “Blueprints of the ship, diagrams of that compartment, and photos of the false wall. Someone went to great lengths; they took a sheet of metal from the repair kit, screwed it in, painted it. An excellent job, professional. No one would have noticed. No one noticed for 35 years.”
Sven falls silent. He looks at the table. His hands, which were calm, clench into fists. “We found something on one of the screws,” Joacón continues, and his voice becomes hard as steel. “Under the paint. Time is amazing; it can destroy everything and preserve it, as it preserved Rolf’s body in the cold. As it preserved a tiny fragment of grease and sweat left on the screw when someone screwed it to the wall. We found a fingerprint.”
Sven Joacón pauses. A deathly silence reigns in the room. “We compared it with yours. It’s your finger, the thumb of your right hand.” That’s it. The fortress crumbled in an instant. There was no trace of walls or protection left, only pure fear. Sven Bjnstad, successful restaurateur and media figure, disappears. In the chair, cornered, sits the murderer. He looks up at Joacón. In his gaze, there is no longer confidence, only panic and desperation.
He remains silent for a minute, two. Then his shoulders slump; he deflates like a punctured balloon. “I didn’t want to kill him,” he says in a weak, subdued voice. “I didn’t want to do it.” And he begins to recount everything from the beginning. About the food theft, about how Rolf caught him, about the fear that his entire career, everything he had fought for, would go down the drain. “That night he came to see me. He told me he had all the evidence, that the next day in port he would turn it over to the appropriate authorities.
I begged him, I pleaded with him not to do it; I offered him money, but he just looked at me and said, ‘You’re a thief, Sven, and you will pay for it.’ He went to the store, and I followed him. I wanted to get the folder back; I just wanted to get those damn papers back. We started to fight in the narrow hallway between the shelves. I was younger, stronger. I pushed him just to move him out of the way. And he stumbled backward, tripped, and fell back. There was a dull thud. He hit his head against the corner of a metal shelf.”
Sven falls silent. His eyes glaze over with memories. “He fell, and that was it. He didn’t move. I checked his pulse; he wasn’t breathing. I stood next to him, and I couldn’t believe it. All for a folder with some papers. My whole life collapsed in a second. At first, I felt panic. I wanted to run, call the captain, but then fear took over. No one would believe me. They would say I killed him on purpose. That’s prison. Many years. And I saw that wall. I knew there was nothing behind it. And I thought, if they don’t find him, if he just disappears.”
He talks a lot, confused, jumping from one detail to another. He recounts how he dragged the terrified body, how all night, while his colleagues slept, he built that wall, how his hands trembled when he screwed in the last screw, how he returned to his cabin and sat there until dawn, unable to sleep. And then he went out for his shift and began to play his part. “I thought I could forget it,” he whispers at the end. “I built myself a new life. I forced myself to believe that Rolf was no longer there, but he was always there. Every night, in every cold room. He waited, waited for you to arrive.”
When he finished, silence reigned once more in the room. He cried silently, wiping his tears with an expensive cuff. They were not tears of regret; they were tears of self-pity. That same night, Sven Bernstad was arrested on charges of murder and concealment of a corpse. The truth that had remained hidden in coldness and darkness for 35 years finally came to light. For Rolf Johansen, the long and lonely journey had ended. For his family, decades of uncertainty had come to an end. The sea hadn’t taken him; a man had taken him.
