All was quiet in the house. The Sun had risen well over an hour earlier. The hum of London grew as the city started a new day.
There were two occupants of the house. For one of them this was a day to celebrate. For the other, the prospect of walkies, rabbits to chase and food was normal.
In a bedroom at the front of the three-storey terraced house, Vivienne Carter was wide awake. Today was her sixtieth birthday, plus it was the first day of what she’d been calling her ‘afterlife’. She’d just retired from her job as very senior official at the HMRC in the ‘Collections Department’. The previous day which had been a rather sad occasion. Vivienne, could have carried on working for at least six more years until she qualified for a state pension but she’d had enough of work, commuting and putting up with the incompetence of other people for far too long so she'd decided several months before to call it a day when she turned sixty years of age.