Tesis

1

OFFICIALLY DEAD
1 The Meeting
Colin Fenton was lying on the bed in his hotel room, wishing that he was somewhere else. The window was open and he could hear the constant sound of traffic outside. The hotel was in Brentwood, a small town in Essex, just beyond the eastern suburbs of London. Colin was in Brentwood to teach a computer software course to the administrative staff of a companycalled Sutton Chemicals. This kind of teaching was always dull, tedious work, and today - the first day of the course - it had been particularly dull and tedious. By the afternoon, Colin had been exhausted. Now it was good to lie on the bed in the semi-darkness. The evening air was cool and damp. Slowly, Colin got up off the bed and went to close the window. He stared out over the hotel car-parktowards the wide, busy street beyond, while he wondered where he could go to eat dinner. He had a shower and put on some casual clothes. He phoned his home in Bath, about 200 kilometres away to the west, but his wife wasn't in the house. Then Colin remembered that she had been going to travel to see some clients that afternoon. She'd probably had to work late - she often did. 'I'll phone her afterdinner,' he thought. Colin and his wife, Julie, were partners in business. Their company, C.J.F. Software Solutions, developed computer programs and sold them to a number of large businesses. Colin looked after the company's finances, the marketing of the computer software, and the organization of training courses. Julie, was a software developer. Colin left his hotel room and went to find somewhereto eat. The hotel didn't have a restaurant, but earlier in the day Colin had seen a pub which had a restaurant attached, just down the street. He decided to walk there. The food and wine were excellent. At last, Colin began to relax. So after the meal, instead of going straight back to the hotel to have an early night, he went into the bar of the pub. It was noisy and crowded, but Colin didn'tcare about that. In one corner of the bar there was a large television set. A football match was showing, and most of the customers were watching it. Colin bought a drink and tried to find an empty seat. As he was looking round the crowded room, he saw something that almost made him drop his glass.

He walked towards a man who was standing at the other end of the bar. 'For a moment, I thought Iwas looking in a mirror,' he said. The other man was shocked too. The two of them stood facing each other. It was strange - unreal. Then they both laughed. The two men were unbelievably alike. They were both in their late thirties, they had almost identical features, they even had the same hairstyle. Colin was perhaps slightly heavier, but otherwise the two men were doubles. 'We could be twinbrothers,' the other man said. They introduced themselves. The other man's name was ]ohn Bentley. He had a soft London accent. 'There's a seat free at our table, if you'd like to join us,' he said. 'I must introduce you to my wife.' Linda Bentley was sitting on a long seat in the corner farthest from the television. She moved along the seat to make room for Colin. 'It's incredible,' she said, looking atColin and her husband. 'You two are identical- you're perfect doubles!' Linda was dressed in black clothes. She had fair hair, large green eyes, and a broad smile. She wore a lot of make-up and she wore a lot of heavy gold jewellery. Her skirt, Colin noticed, was very short indeed. She could not have looked less like his own wife, but he liked the way she looked. ‘I´ve not seen you in herebefore, Colin,' John Bentley said. 'Where are you from?' 'Bath,' Colin said. 'My wife and I own a small computer software company there. I'm in Brentwood for a couple of days, teaching a course.' 'Oh, I don't know anything about computer software,' Linda said. 'You must be very clever.' She smiled at him and Colin laughed. 'No,' he said, 'my wife's the clever one.' Colin enjoyed being with the...