"Cem! Where are you, boy, did you turn into a tree in there!" As Master Rıza's impatient voice echoed against the thin tin walls of the locker room, the deadly silence inside was racing against the seconds. Cem, with his back pressed against the cold metal lockers, was staring at Yekta with trembling hands. The realization that this quiet, solemn man—whom he saw as a father figure and brought tea to at every opportunity—was actually the demonic silhouette drenching Izmir in blood had paralyzed the young man's mind.
Yekta took a single step toward Cem with the bloody, crescent-bladed pocketknife in his hand. There was neither hate nor anger on his face; there was only the chilling, pragmatic cold-bloodedness of a gardener who had decided to clear the weeds from his garden.
"Brother..." groaned Cem. His voice was barely a whisper. Tears streamed down his cheeks. "I swear I didn't see anything... I won't tell anyone. God damn me, I'll keep my mouth shut, brother!"
The moment Cem shielded his face with his hands and tried to dodge sideways, Yekta's steel-like, calloused left hand clamped over the young man's mouth and nose like a vise. Cem's struggle was broken in seconds against Yekta's primal and savage physical strength.
"I know, Cem," whispered Yekta, his lips almost touching the boy's ear. "But secrets will sprout unless they are buried under the soil."
The crescent-bladed pocketknife flashed one last time in the dim light of the warehouse.
Yekta crudely swung the aesthetically curved cut, which he had reserved only for his flawless, "rare orchids" until today, at Cem's neck to protect his secret. The knife sliced smoothly through flesh and cartilage. As the innocent fear in Cem's eyes gave way to the dull void of death, his body collapsed heavily into Yekta's arms.
Yekta didn't have a single second to lose. The sound of Master Rıza's heavy, muddy boots crushing the gravel had started approaching from outside.
Before the warm blood could pool on the concrete floor of the locker room, Yekta grabbed Cem's lifeless body under the armpits. He dragged him toward the massive, green-colored sheet-metal fertilizer chest standing in the corner of the room, waiting to be poured into the parks in winter. Lifting the heavy lid of the chest with one hand, he mercilessly pushed the boy into that dark pit filled to the brim with heavy-smelling peat and chemical fertilizer. As Cem's body was buried among the fertilizers, Yekta hid the bloody cloth and the knife in his hand right next to him, deep in the soil, and shut the iron lid with a loud bang.
"Cem! Are you deaf, man..."
When the locker room door swung open violently, Master Rıza barged in. At that exact second, Yekta was sitting on the green fertilizer chest, resting his hands on his knees, taking deep, exhausted breaths. He was holding the stitches on his own neck, grimacing as if in pain.
"Yekta?" said Master Rıza, looking around. "Where is this clumsy boy? He was going to bring you a battery."
"Don't ask, master," said Yekta in a raspy and exhausted voice. "He couldn't find the battery. The pain in my neck flared up again, and he sat me down here because I was feeling dizzy. Then he rushed out saying, 'I'll go find a new one from the back warehouse.'"
Master Rıza nodded with a grunt. "Son of a bitch is looking for an excuse to run away from work. Anyway, you sit and rest, you look pale."
Master Rıza was just about to turn and leave when the horrifying screech of brakes and siren wails coming from the outer gate of the nursery shook the thin walls of the warehouse.
Within seconds, three unmarked police cars barged into the middle of the nursery, splashing mud. As the doors of the vehicles opened simultaneously, all the workers in the nursery dropped their shovels and shears, stepping back in shock.
The person stepping out of the middle vehicle was Chief Inspector Aylin. The leather jacket on her was covered in mud and filthy water due to that life-or-death struggle in the sewer. Her hair was wet, her face was covered in scratches, but the hellfire in her eyes burned brighter than ever. In her right hand, she gripped that heavy and rusty I.B.B. T-wrench like a weapon.
Aylin walked straight toward the locker room where Master Rıza and Yekta were, with fast and uncompromising steps. Standing at the doorframe, she scanned the inside with her piercing gaze.
Yekta, sitting on that fertilizer-filled sheet-metal chest that was absorbing Cem's blood right beneath him, didn't move his innocent, suffering worker mask even a millimeter. Yet his heart was beating stronger than it ever had in his life, almost like playing a march of victory. The narcissistic god inside him was ecstatic as he watched Aylin's shattered, defeated state.
"Chief..." said Master Rıza in a panic, taking a step forward. "I hope everything is alright, what happened again?"
Aylin aggressively raised that rusty, heavy valve wrench in her hand toward Master Rıza's chest. The inscription "I.B.B. PARK AND GARDENS DEPT." on it gleamed in the dim light of the warehouse.
"This wrench," said Aylin, her voice trembling from sleeplessness and anger. "Was used last night on the main discharge line in Alsancak to drown a police officer. And the person who came out of that line is someone who knows the materials of this nursery, the shift system, and the infrastructure of this place like the back of their hand!"
Master Rıza turned white as a sheet. "Chief... Those aren't even registered. There are dozens of those wrenches in the warehouse. Subcontractors, infrastructure crews, IZSU, everyone comes, grabs one, and tosses it in their truck..."
"Shut up!" roared Aylin. Her eyes bypassed Master Rıza and locked onto the man sitting on that green chest in the dimness of the warehouse.
Yekta. The unlucky laborer with the thick, crude bandage on his neck.
Aylin slowly walked in. Her muddy boots made dull thuds on the concrete floor. She stopped right in front of Yekta, only half a meter away. There was a one-meter gap of air between them and that bloody chest Yekta was sitting on. Yekta avoided her gaze, lowering his head in a submissive manner. Yet just ten centimeters below his hip, the warm blood seeping from Cem's open neck was about to mix with the peat soil. A single drop of blood leaking out from that small, invisible gap at the edge of the chest would be enough to bring Yekta's kingdom crumbling down that very second.
"You," said Aylin in an icy voice. "What was your name?"
"Yekta, chief," said Yekta, flawlessly embedding that thick Aegean accent and exhausted tone into his voice.
Aylin's eyes drifted to that crude bandage on Yekta's neck, and from there to the man's thick, calloused, muddy hands. Her mind was trying to match that dark silhouette in the sewer last night, that savage shadow that tore Defne's neck apart, with this man. But her arrogance, that "flawless, brilliant, and elite serial killer" profile was still building a thick wall around her brain. Aylin's mind vehemently rejected the possibility that this mediocre, pathetic worker who cut his own neck could have committed those flawless murders.
As Aylin looked at the man's pathetic posture, she thought to herself, This man must just be a pawn who does the grunt work for that killer, stealing the materials. That brilliant scumbag is using these wretches.
"What's inside that chest?" Aylin asked suddenly. Her eyes were locked onto that large green sheet-metal box Yekta was sitting on.
A cold cramp gripped Yekta's stomach, but his facial muscles didn't move a millimeter. He held his neck and grimaced. "Winter chemical fertilizer, chief," he said calmly. "The smell is heavy, so we keep its iron lid locked so mice don't come. I can get up if you want..."
Yekta slowly made a move to stand up as if in pain. If Aylin asked him to open the lid, Yekta would pull that crescent-bladed pocketknife from among the fertilizers in seconds, strike a single fatal blow to Aylin's neck, and kill everyone in the nursery, running out into that bloody apocalypse outside. His muscles were tense like a bow, waiting for that moment of explosion.
Aylin looked at Yekta's pathetic, writhing state. The heavy, throat-burning organic smell inside the nursery had made her nauseous. He already smelled terrible enough, and she didn't have time.
"Sit down, let it be," said Aylin, waving her hand in frustration. She turned to Master Rıza. "You will bring me the list of everyone who was on shift last night, everyone who has a key to those warehouses. Every inch of this dump will be searched. None of you will move a muscle out of this city until I find that man!"
Aylin turned around and walked out of the locker room with quick steps.
Yekta slowly sat back down on the chest. As Aylin's footsteps faded away, Yekta took a deep, trembling breath filled with indescribable pleasure. He closed his eyes and smiled. Izmir's smartest cop had just stood barely half a meter away from a fresh corpse, looked Yekta right in the eyes, and once again failed to see anything.
Arrogance was Aylin's greatest blindness; and Yekta's greatest weapon. And Yekta, sitting on that chest, knew that the rules of the game had completely changed now, and that the prey and the hunter were irreversibly interlocked.
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