For the past eight years, the dusty archive room in the basement of the city's crime branch has become Inspector Latif's second home. The huge notice board in front of him is like a spider's web, with red thread, hundreds of photos and newspaper cuttings. He is looking for a serial killer who does not exist in the police records. The media does not know the killer, people in the department laugh at him, and even criminal psychologists have dismissed Latif's theory as mental illness.
This is because the killer does not kill anyone with his own hands, he has no weapon, no specific target pattern. He just creates the 'butterfly effect'.
Latif saw a picture on the left side of the board, a car accident three years ago. A freight truck lost control on the highway and crashed into a school bus. 25 people were killed on the spot. Everyone thought it was just an accident. But Latif has found out by searching the CCTV footage that just before the accident, a man had tied a small mirror to the railing in such a way that at exactly 8:10 am, the sunlight reflected directly into the truck driver's eyes. So that the driver was blinded for a second and that's it.
Another picture on the right side of the board - a fight between 2 gangsters in the city's most secure jail. 10 inmates were killed. The police investigation said it was a fight over cigarettes. However, Latif has clear evidence that the fight started two days ago when someone very delicately slipped a deadly letter inside the shoelaces kept outside the cell of the 2 gang leaders. And from this small seed of suspicion, the bloodbath begins.
The man is not an ordinary serial killer, he is a 'mastermind architect'. He only throws the first domino, the rest is done by human greed, fate and circumstances. He makes every death look like a perfect accident, who is being killed, why - he has no specific motive. The whole city is a chessboard for the killer and the deaths are just a perfect equation of physics and psychology for him.
Today Latif is very tired. For the last eight years, he has only been chasing the shadows left by this man. There is no way to catch the man, because according to the law, he has not committed any murder. Tying a mirror or changing a shoelace is not a crime of murder under any law. Latif reached into his pocket to light a cigarette, but as soon as he put his hand in his pocket, his finger hit a hard, cold metal object. He was startled and took out the object and saw an old, rusty silver coin.
A chill ran down Latif's spine, he knew one thing very well from the last eight years of investigation—whenever this architect created a major 'masterpiece', he would leave a silver coin somewhere close to the victims, exactly 24 hours before. It was his signature.
Latif quickly stood up from his chair. Where had he been all day? Who had he met? When had the coin found its way into his pocket? Does that mean he was the target himself? Is another major accident going to happen through him? All these questions started coming to Latif's mind in seconds.
Latif started investigating every corner of the archive room like a madman. The light switch, the door knob, the ceiling fan—had any subtle changes been made? Would he step outside this room? What if a hidden arrow was triggered as soon as the door opened? What if he called someone and a bomb exploded somewhere because of that radio frequency?
The clock is ticking slowly. Latif's breathing is getting heavy, his whole body is shaking with fear. He knows that the man will not shoot him or strangle him, the man will only create a situation.
Latif did not realize that there is no spring or bomb inside the room. This masterpiece of this architect is not an external accident, the architect knew very well that Latif's mental state has been hanging by a thread for the past 8 years while chasing this case. And a silver coin is enough to tear Latif's mental thread.
When other officers of the Crime Branch broke the door from outside the archive and entered, 24 hours had passed. The officers saw Inspector Latif sitting in a corner of the room, staring blankly at the wall and counting an invisible coin like a madman with his fingers. There was no scar anywhere on his body, but the man's inner being was completely dead. Latif's own diary was open on the table, with only one line written on the last page :