The Legacy

desk and immediately a guard appeared to escort her out of the building. ‘Well, thank you, Richard,’ she said as she left. ‘We’ll work together on this. From now on. You tell me everything.’
    ‘Everything,’ Richard assured her, waiting until the door had closed behind him before he picked up the phone. He had bought some time; now he had to use it wisely. ‘Derek,’ he said. ‘Come up, please. We have some work to do.’

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    Chapter Eight
     
    Julia Sharpe poured herself another gin and tonic and returned to the plump cushions of her sofa. It was 4 p.m. – an in-between time that Julia had, lately, begun to fill with a drink and programme downloads. In truth she’d have preferred wine, but that wasn’t an option nowadays. Nothing that had travelled more than fifty miles was allowed, and the recent cold summers had put a stop to the south-east’s wine production. But gin was OK. It did the job.
    She’d already been to the gym, had her hair done, made sure that the house was in order, organised supper, popped round to a neighbour’s for coffee and read a chapter of her book, but still the afternoon and evening stretched out in front of her like a long journey. Her husband would not be home for another four hours and even when he did return, he would bring little to alleviate the monotony. He would pick up the paper, sit on his chair, put on a CD, and wait to be called for dinner. Then they would eat, perhaps talk about their day, retire to the sitting room for more reading, watching, listening. Then bed. Then morning again. But at least he would be there. Few people were married these days – monogamy seemed almost laughable when lives stretched out indefinitely. But Julia didn’t like to be alone and her husband had no time to find anyone else to fall in love with. And they were fond of each other. They offered each other comfort.
    She took a large gulp of her drink and enjoyed the kick, followed by the warmth that seemed to fill her body – every bone, every vein. She felt her spine relax, felt her shoulders fall back. She switched on the computer. Immediately she heard tense and agitated voices on the news feed, but she quickly navigated away. Too depressing – full of stories of whole populations starving to death, of water restrictions being increased. Nothing, of course, on the subject that was on everyone’s lips: the Missing. Stolen away in the middle of the night, Julia had heard. There were rumours of screaming, of disease, of plague. But that was ridiculous – why people insisted on suggesting such things when everyone knew that illness didn’t exist any more was a mystery to Julia. Were they so bored that they had to invent catastrophes just to keep themselves going?
    She leant back on the sofa and closed her eyes briefly, allowed herself to remember sun-drenched holidays, decorating her house, spending time with friends. Her life had always been comfortable. Enjoyable. And yet somehow, at some point – she couldn’t remember when – something had happened. Perhaps it was simply external factors – tighter and tighter rationing of energy didn’t help – but Julia knew that wasn’t it. It was inside. A growing dissatisfaction. A growing gnawing in her stomach, questioning . . . but questioning what? The point of it all? Of the endless days, the endless trips to the hairdresser’s, the endless reading of newspapers that rarely had anything new to say? Did she use to find them interesting? She didn’t know.
    And it wasn’t just her. She saw it all around her. The enthusiasm people had for high-risk sports. The way some, like Julia herself, obsessed over every new wrinkle as though it were a sign of a more fundamental decay, while others had given up, letting everything go, becoming heavy and grey and wrinkly because they just didn’t care any more. Perhaps they couldn’t care any more; perhaps the demands of eternity were simply too much.
    And then there were those who had given up completely. The very few who took extreme sports to the true extreme – jumping out of buildings, jumping off bridges. There had been more of those recently, Julia couldn’t help noticing. Perhaps that was what the missing people really were – people giving up hope, giving up their own existence because they didn’t know what to do with themselves any more.
    Julia shook herself. This was why she didn’t like to be alone, she reminded herself – because she thought too much. It was