The Legacy

wanted to look after him.
    ‘I’ve already stopped taking my Longevity,’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘I didn’t take any today. Not after what I saw . . . I want you to stop too. I want us to stay here. I don’t want to go back outside.’
    ‘You’ve what?’ He stared at her incredulously. ‘What are you thinking?’
    ‘I’m thinking,’ she said careful y, ‘that I have always been in a position to make choices. We’ve been lucky in that way. And now I am making this choice. They won’t take me away in a van. They won’t take you. I want us to grow old together. Even if we’re only old for a few weeks, days even.’
    ‘Die? Get old?’ Anthony shook his head. ‘Julia, wil you please listen to me? I told you, the Authorities have made it clear that –’
    He was trembling. ‘You’re wrong, Julia. The Authorities are clear that everything is under control.’
    ‘And you believe them? You believe what you have been told?’ Julia demanded, her eyes gripping his, her voice quivering with emotion. ‘Real y?’
    He swal owed, looked away. ‘The Authorities’ line is that –’
    ‘There are bodies piling up, Anthony,’ Julia cut in. ‘I saw them with my own eyes.
    When I left the hairdressers, I walked and walked. They can’t col ect al the bodies, can they? Tel me the truth, Anthony.’
    ‘It’s not my job to know the truth,’ her husband said hesitantly. ‘My job is to fol ow the rules, to manage efficiently, to ensure that protocol is adhered to . . .’
    ‘And what if it doesn’t mat er any more?’ Julia said. ‘What then?’
    ‘I . . . I . . .’ He looked at her helplessly. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. She led him to a chair, where he sat down, let his head hang forward. Then he sat up again, his eyes wide. He looked at Julia mournful y; suddenly he seemed very tired. ‘They’re digging up land,’ he said, his voice barely audible. ‘The file states that it is for vegetable farming. But they are digging trenches two metres deep. Four in some places.
    Vegetables aren’t planted four metres underground.’
    ‘No, they’re not,’ Julia said, stroking his head.
    ‘And so many people col ected for seditious activity,’ he continued desperately.
    ‘Hundreds of thousands of names. But there aren’t that many prison places. I asked where they had al been taken but no one could answer me. They’ve just . . .
    disappeared.’
    Anthony sat up, pul ed her towards him so that she was sit ing on his knee. She hadn’t been there for decades. ‘I love you, Julia,’ he said, burying his face in her neck. ‘I have always loved you.’
    ‘And I love you.’ Julia smiled, tears in her eyes. ‘I love you very much, Anthony.’
    They sat in silence for a few minutes.
    ‘How many days?’ he asked eventual y.
    ‘They say it can be weeks,’ Julia said, smiling through her tears.
    ‘Take some today, then,’ her husband said, looking at her fervently. ‘We’l stop together. Wait for me. We’l stop together, we’l go at the same time. We’l shut the door, we’l hole in. We’l do this our way.’
    ‘Yes.’ Julia nodded happily, tears now cascading down her cheeks. ‘We’l do it our way. Together. It’s time to start saying goodbye.’
    .

Chapter Twenty
    Derek Samuels sat on the edge of his chair waiting. Soon. Soon it would be time.
    Everything was in place. The children locked away downstairs. Pip. Jude would arrive before long, bringing Peter and the girl, Sheila, with him.
    Final y, Derek would wreak his revenge. He had waited a long time. Too long.
    But soon it would be over.
    Soon it would al be over.
    A few minutes later Jude and Peter emerged on to a grubby London street, their col ars up, their hats pul ed down low. Jude’s hands, thrust in his trouser pockets, belied the urgency in his walk. Since he had joined the Underground he had known that the streets al carried danger, but now it was different. Now it wasn’t just Catchers or Authorities police he was fearful of, it was everyone. Everything. Death and the fear of death had changed everything, had changed everyone. Now it was each man for himself and anger erupted easily, devastatingly.
    The street itself was largely empty; Jude soon realised why. In several doorways lay bodies – some alive, some dead – that had not been picked up yet, their diseased and rot ing flesh at racting flies, creating a stench that forced passers-by on to the other side of the road. Jude tried to pul Peter away, but he