Zero Point

18

Driving through the streets of North Kensington, Fenton felt a semblance of normality returning. Although still quiet, and raining heavily, passersby wandered the streets, going about their daily business. The high street stores were all open. Fenton had never thought the sight of traffic could bring such relief.

After verifying that Dr. Stafford and her assistant, Helen Golding, had failed to turn up for work that morning, Fenton decided he had to investigate himself.

He pulled up his Jaguar outside the Hammersmith apartment block, just off Fulham Palace Road a few minutes from the tube station. He jumped out the car and scurried to the front entrance, eager to escape the downpour. He pressed the buzzer for Flat 18 repeatedly. No answer.

He tried buzzing the other flats, but everyone who answered refused to let him in, even when he insisted he was a police officer. Which he wasn't, but still.

So he waited impatiently for about ten minutes, getting soaked to the bone, until someone left the apartment, then rushed for the door before it shut. Once inside, he made his way to the lift at the back. It was tiny, the size of a cupboard. He pressed the button for floor five.

To no avail. It wasn't working.

"What a shithole," he muttered under his breath, then laboured up the stairs to the top floor.

For a reasonably well-paid forensic science investigator, she didn't live in a particularly upmarket location. Hammersmith had once been a fairly sought-after area, but in the last decade, like so many areas of London, it had become populated with a growing underclass―criminals, drug addicts, pimps, unemployed wasters. It was as if the Great Crash of 2008 had never stopped, but had just got bigger and bigger. Prices of everything had crept up steadily since then, until just paying for food and basic bills was difficult for even the middle classes. Which, some speculated, no longer existed.

Once at the top, Fenton tried dialling Stafford again. This time he held the phone away from his ear. His heart sank. He could hear a faint ringing coming from further ahead. He followed the sound until he reached Flat 18 about two-thirds of the way up the corridor. Unmistakeably, the ringing was coming from inside.

He rang the bell, his heart pounding.

"Dr. Stafford? Dr. Meria Stafford?" he shouted.

No answer. Then just as he moved to bang on the door, he noticed it was already slightly ajar. Strange. Gently, he nudged it open, then rapped it loudly with his knuckles.

"Dr. Stafford?" he yelled.

He shook his head wearily and stepped inside. All the lights were on. It was a small flat. The door led straight into a tight hallway, with two doors on either side.

"Dr. Stafford?" said Fenton, his voice wavering.

She's probably just ill or something. Really ill, and she forgot to shut the door properly.

He gingerly moved deeper into the flat, dialling Stafford's phone again. It rang from further inside. "Hello? Anybody home?"

He ignored the first two doors, which led to a small sitting room and a bedroom, straight to the last door at the far end from where the sound of the phone resonated. It was slightly ajar. He could hear the ringing from inside. He pushed the door open.

"Jesus."

A woman in her forties with long black hair was sprawled facedown in a pool of blood that had congealed across almost the whole floor. A young brunette was seated, slumped over the breakfast bar, her eyes shut. Next to her limp hand on the bar was a blood-soaked carving knife.

The scene was like something out of a Tarantino film.

He rushed to the woman on the floor and checked her pulse. Nothing. He moved quickly to check the other woman's pulse at the bar. Suddenly she flinched, and spun around to face him. Her eyes were wild. With an animalistic shriek she leapt from the counter toward Fenton, brandishing the knife.

"Stop!" screamed Fenton as he dodged backwards.

The brunette smashed into the floor, splattering blood all over herself and Fenton, who turned and raced through the hallway, reaching for his phone. She scrambled frantically in the blood, still yelling, but then slipped. Fenton wasn't waiting around for her to get to her feet. He was already bounding down the stairs.

"Emma! Get SO19 here now!! This is an emergency!"