The plain white envelope lay face down on the doormat. She had not noticed it when she had first come downstairs for breakfast, so presumably the sound of the postman's arrival had been covered by the morning news on her radio. Short of time as usual, she grabbed her car keys from the stand and stooped to pick the letter up. Miss Gillian Jane Howerd. Nobody called her Gillian, except of course her decade dead mother. Anyway she preferred Ms. It wasn't a feminist thing really, just that she didn't wish to be defined by her marital status. Miss conjured up in her mind images of old maids, those mythical spinsters who cycled to church on Sunday mornings through mist shrouded meadows, in an England that, if it had ever existed, had certainly disappeared at some point in the distant past.
She glanced briefly at herself in the hall mirror as she headed for the car, folding the envelope carelessly into her handbag. The cut of her shoulder length hair, which in her youth had been a deep, rich auburn had recently lapsed into an unflattering style and had now faded to a tousled grey. Those years at university had seen her through her Goth phase, something that had passed into history when she had needed to get a job. The job itself had only lasted a further three, a living hell that had ended when she had quit the chaos of the classroom at the run down inner city school and joined Harrison's as an HR trainee.
They were a big engineering company with more than three thousand employees. They had grown from a family firm in the a East Midlands and Gill, as she had always preferred to be known, had displayed a natural talent for the job. She was a neat, petite woman, standing only five feet four and a half, on those rare occasions when she was not in one of her many pairs of stilettos, a slim, athletic body that had barely changed in those three decades since the onset of adulthood. Her slightness of build however belied her physical strength, a quality that combined with an equally strong and agile mind. She was a tough and effective negotiator with an easy going assertiveness, something that never seemed to fail in putting her adversaries on the back foot. Her rise within the company had been steady rather than meteoric but now, on the eve of her forty eighth birthday she headed up the whole HR department.
Stan Goodman's file was the only one on her desk that morning. It had been considered sufficiently important an affair to warrant being referred to her. The report of the IT specialist had listed all the sites that the purchasing manager had logged onto over the last month. Gill ran through them one by one. With relief she saw there was nothing that was actually illegal on the list, it was more what might be termed special interest. They had names such as Dominant Dames and Bitches in Boots, all the sites shared a common theme and none of them had very much to do with the purchase of materials connected to the manufacture of industrial crane jibs.
Goodman was nervous at first but when it became clear that these transgressions were not being regarded as a sacking offence he relaxed and was merely deeply embarrassed. He was a man of about her own age, married with a family and a good work record having been with the company for more than eight years. She listened briefly to his garbled excuses before she said. "Look, I am not being at all judgmental and I intend to deal with this by way of a reprimand", adding. "But I don't suppose that given your interests that is going to come as any great hardship". He smiled at her joke. "I would just suggest that in future you keep this sort of thing to your own time". She waved away his rather pathetic apologies and sent him scuttling back to his office.
Her interest piqued, she began to browse a couple of the sites. Bitches in Boots featured a black leather clad redhead who bore a vague resemblance to herself, apart from the silicone breasts that had little in common with her 32b's. She stood high and haughty on towering heels, a naked man on all fours, collared and leashed, cowered at her feet. She felt surprise at her strange twinge of excitement at the image. She lingered for a minute and then clicked off the site and turned her attention to booking an appointment to sort out her hair.
A brief flurry of sleet driven by the last gasp of winter swept the rather run down parade of shops that included the hair salon. Once inside she relaxed, a cup of coffee in her hand as she awaited her appointment time. With the imminence of her birthday she was maybe a little more susceptible to the stylist's suggestion that she took a tint, it seemed a good time to maybe experiment a little. Her mind went back to the redhead in black leather on the website, it was a good look to combine those two colours. "Maybe this shade ". Her index finger hovered over the girl on the product manufacturer's brochure. The willowy model flaunted her mid neck length copper bronze bob. It took Liza back to the early eighties, those pictures taken at Whitby in the summer holidays when she had worn her Goth uniform with something approaching pride but little understanding of the esoteric nature of the subculture and what it entailed.
The house when she arrived home was the usual warm and welcoming oasis, a cosy sanctuary from the late winter chill that had settled over the country as the arctic airstream that had spread from Siberia tightened it's grip. Gill poured herself a glass of dry white wine from the fridge as she waited for the oven to heat. She flicked on the television for the evening news and then remembered the letter that was still in her handbag. The single sheet of cream A4 paper bore the heading of Newman, Wiley & Co. Solicitors of Northdene in Suffolk.
She was instantly transported back almost forty years to those long, hot summers of the nineteen seventies that she had spent with her Aunt Naomi. Even now a chance pop song on the radio conjured up memories. Her father's elder sister had been the odd one out in the family. Sometime during the nineteen fifties she had worked for a publisher in London. It was there that she had met Louis, a fairly successful author with whom she had had an affair. He had bought the house at Northdene, a Georgian town on the Suffolk coast, home to a colony of artistic bohemians who made their way there every summer when London life became too hectic.
The solicitor's letter advised her that she was the main beneficiary of the estate of the late Naomi Felicity Howerd. She placed it on the table and poured herself another glass of wine. Over the past decade Northdene had gained a reputation as a property hotspot with ever spiralling prices as buyers from London sought exclusive bolt holes for their summer weekends. She took out her i pad and dashed off a reply to the solicitors.
How a week and a half can change the feeling of England completely. Gill dropped the silver Audi TT a gear and felt the response of the powerful engine as she passed a line of container trucks heading east on the A14. Maybe she thought her employer's products heading for Felixstowe docks. The warm morning sun even prompted a quick burst on the air conditioning before she left the dual carriageway for the last hour of the drive along smaller roads to Northdene.
She checked her makeup in the rear view mirror. She was getting used to the slightly vampish copper bronze bob hairstyle now, the contrast with her green eyes was striking. Since last Monday, inspired by the mix of colours she had bought herself a rather expensive pencil skirt. She loved the way the tight black leather clung to her slim hips and she had quite deliberately introduced a little more sway into her walk in her favourite stiletto courts, wearing the outfit to the supermarket last night. Surreptitiously she had watched the male eyes following her. She enjoyed displaying her unattainability as the frumpy mums fumed at their husbands eyeing up this flame haired siren sashaying along the cat food aisle.
She parked in Northdene high street. Something that was still possible in March before the Easter holidays signalled the start of the holiday season and the town filled up with visitors. The offices of Newman, Wiley and Co. were situated in a bay fronted red brick terrace next to a Costa coffee shop. Gill was shocked at just how much the town had changed since the days of her holiday visits. Gone were the little, rather quaint family businesses, replaced by names more familiar in every other high street in the land.
She vaguely recalled calling at the office with Aunt Naomi on one of her holidays. She casually wondered if it had been the time of her making the will that Gordon Wiley now placed on the desk in front of him. "I can confirm that apart from a handful of minor bequests you are the sole beneficiary Miss Howerd." She considered correcting him as to her title, but considered it would be churlish to do so in the situation, merely nodding in acknowledgement. He continued. "The main bulk of the estate comprises the property known as Norwood, there are various accounts in addition, I have summarised these, it amounts to some forty two thousand pounds. If you would sign at the bottom I will release the keys to Norwood and transfer the money to you from our client account."
Gill went to a restaurant along the high street for some lunch and then drove the mile or so out to Norwood House. It was a large detached chalet bungalow set in it's own substantial wooded grounds that sloped away towards the river valley. In the months after Naomi's death the house had been neglected. She parked the car in the driveway. Weeds were already sprouting through everywhere, despite the fact that it was still only early spring. The front door was covered in dark green paint that was dry, cracked and peeling. She slipped the key into the lock and entered the hallway. Shocked at the level of neglect she brushed away a dangling cobweb. The whole place smelled musty and damp.
