Humbug

Joanna Chambers

EPUB Edition

Cover art: Natasha Snow

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This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or business establishments or organisations is completely coincidental.

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Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

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23
^rd
December

“A
ll I want for Christmas is…you…”

“Oh, piss off,” I grumbled at the radio alarm. Eyes still closed, I flailed my arm in the general direction of the snooze button, thumping my hand on the plastic casing several times before I finally managed to cut off Mariah’s cheerful warbling.

Fucking Christmas.

Fucking
mornings.
I hated mornings. Especially mornings after late nights in the office. I’d stayed in the office till one in the morning to complete my final report on Project Charlie, fuelled only by yet another takeaway pizza. It had been after two before I’d finally rolled into bed.

Oh, and then there had been that rude awakening at four when my flatmate Freddy had returned from her work Christmas party. Her stumbling progress to bed, complete with singing, had been loud enough to wake the neighbours too, probably. It’d taken me ages to drop off again afterwards.

And now it was seven forty-five, and I felt like death warmed up.

I forced myself to sit up and rubbed at my face, yawning hard. I could, of course, just pull the blankets up over my head and go back to sleep. No one would blink an eye if I swanned in a little later than usual—not after working the whole weekend followed by several late nights—but I made it a personal rule to keep the core office hours. How could I expect everyone else in the office to improve on their basic utilisation if I wasn’t around during those core hours?

A shower and a shave, then. That would at least halfway wake me up. Coffee would take care of the rest.

When I walked into the kitchen twenty minutes later, I expected it to be empty but to my surprise, Freddy was there, slumped at the kitchen table over what looked like basin of cereal. She looked rough. Product-mired hair stuck up every which way, and last night’s quiff was sadly wrecked. Smudged eyeliner and mascara ringed her bloodshot eyes in black cakey smears. Frankly, I was amazed she was even conscious given how lairy she’d sounded on her return a few hours before.

“Morning,” she said. Her voice was a throaty husk. She’d probably ruined it by screaming along to the music at whatever club she’d ended up in last night.

I just glared at her.

“What’re you looking like that for?” she said. “What did I do?”

“You woke me up when you came in at
fucking four o’clock
this morning.” I yanked open the fridge and grabbed the milk. “Some of us have to work, you know.”

“I have to work!” Freddy said indignantly. “Though not till Thursday now, thank Christ.” She slurped another spoonful of cereal.

“I can’t believe you’re even up.” I filled the kettle. “Have you seen yourself? You must still be drunk. Any normal person would be comatose after coming home in the state you were in.”

“I’m not normal,” she said morosely. “I’m a nurse.”

“Well, there is that.” I loaded up a mug with a splash of milk and a teabag, adding witheringly, “Bunch of drunken whores.”

“Hey! I
meant
that the night shifts fuck with my body clock.” Then she yawned hugely and added, “Although we are also a bunch of drunken whores, it’s true.”

I let out a single huff of amusement at that—no more, since I was still hugely pissed off at her—and concentrated on making my tea, grabbing a spoon out the drawer to mash the bag against the side of the mug till my brew was brick red and builder-strength.

I felt Freddy’s attention on me as I worked. She had to know how irritated I was. Everything about me—my silence, my thin-lipped expression, my drawer-banging—was signalling my bad temper loud and clear. And sure enough, when she finally broke the silence between us, it was to confront me about it. Freddy was a head-on kind of a girl.

“You know what, mate?” she snapped, after I chucked the teabag in the bin and slammed the lid back on. The “mate” was anything but friendly.

I looked up and regarded her coolly. “What?”

“You need to lighten the fuck up. It’s fucking Christmas.”

I rolled my eyes. “Jesus, the world doesn’t stop just because it’s Christmas. I’m so sick of it. Every year, the season gets longer, and everyone starts winding down earlier. It’s ridiculous.”

“I’m a nurse, Quin. I know the world doesn’t stop—unlike you, I’ll actually be working on Christmas Day so don’t give me that bullshit.”

“Fine. Don’t give me yours. You’re off today—I’m not. And thanks to you, I’m going into the office feeling bloody knackered.”

She looked guilty at that. “I’m sorry, okay? I had this idea that you were finishing that big project you’d been working on. Didn’t you say that yesterday morning?”

“Well, yes, but just because the project’s complete doesn’t mean there’s nothing left to do,” I exclaimed. “There’s internal reports to be filed and our final bill to be sent out—I need to go through all the time records before I process the invoice. Plus I want to pick up with Phil in London to see if he could use anyone else on his new Singapore project, which should be kicking off this week.”

I wanted in on that Singapore job. For one thing, I wanted the billable hours. I prided myself on my utilisation rate, which had made me one of the top-performing senior associates in the UK this year. If I could persuade Phil to use me, I’d avoid the inevitable couple of weeks of post-project downtime and keep those figures up—with Christmas coming up, there was a good chance Phil would end up under-resourced. More important than the billable hours, though, was my five-year plan. I planned a lateral move to the London office this year, and Phil’s team was my top target.

“
What?
” Freddy’s voice distracted me from my thoughts and when I glanced at her it was to find her staring at me as if she thought I’d gone mad. “Why on earth do you want to go straight onto another project? Even you must need a break sometimes, and it’s
Christmas
, for God’s sake. Let this Phil guy sort out his own project.”

I sent her a patronising look. “One of the best things about my job is that I get to travel all over the world. And I’ve never been to Singapore.”

Freddy looked distinctly unimpressed. “Oh come on, it’s not like you’ll get to see Singapore. Even if you get the chance to go over, you’ll just end up sticking your stuff in a hotel room then working twenty-four seven till you drop from exhaustion before hauling your arse back to England.”

For a moment, I felt deflated—she was probably right after all. But then I reminded myself that visiting Singapore wasn’t the point. It was just what I told people when they wondered why I was offering myself up for more work, and at Christmas too. The truth was, it didn’t matter whether I was put on the team that flew out to the client’s HQ or whether I was stuck at my desk in Manchester as part of the remote office function. I wanted two things out of this: a good timesheet and to impress Phil. That was all that mattered.

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” I said at last. “You might not be ambitious but
I
want to get somewhere in life.”

That annoyed her. I could see it in the curl of her lip and the way her gaze suddenly narrowed.

“Oh yeah? And where is it you want to get to? Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re in danger of disappearing up your own arse.”

My irritation flared at that. “Yeah, well, by the look of you, you’ve already disappeared up yours,” I shot back spitefully.

And just like that Freddy burst out laughing. She laughed so hard she fell back against the cushions on the sofa in surrender, tears running from her eyes and painting her cheeks with lines of watery black. Eventually, I laughed too, somewhat reluctantly, infected by her helpless, generous mirth.

“You’re
such
a bitch, Quinz,” she gasped after a while, between giggles. “I totally love you.”

Our eyes met then, and, despite my anger, I felt a sudden surge of affection. “Love you too, Fred,” I said lightly.

She wiped her eyes, smearing her black tears away and gave me a speculative look. “Well, that’s not something I hear often—would this be a good time to ask a favour?”

“Okay,” I said. “How much do you need?”

“I wasn’t going to ask for money!” To my surprise, she looked insulted.

“What then?” I asked.

“I want you to come out with me tonight. The whole gang’s going to be there.”

I sighed heavily. “I’ve already said I’ll come if I can. You’re going to be in Space, aren’t you?”

“I don’t mean you turning up for the last hour at the club when almost everyone’s gone home. Come for the whole thing—we’re meeting in The Dragon at six, then going to that new gourmet burger place for dinner. Then we’ll pub crawl our way up to Space. It’ll be awesome. Come on, Quin. It’ll be just like old times. Ben’s coming too.”

“Oh well, if my
ex
is going to be there, then I’ll be sure to make it.” I rolled my eyes to emphasise the absurdity of this.

I expected her to get pissed off at that, but instead of looking angry, she looked suddenly sad. “You told me that you and Ben would always be friends. You said that you two breaking up wouldn’t change our group. But it has. You’ve only been in the same room twice since the breakup.” She paused. “It’s been almost two years now.”

I looked away. I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

When the silence stretched, I sighed. “Look, I’ll text you when I’m done at work. I promise.”

Silence greeted that grudging concession and when I glanced at Freddy she still looked sad. And now disappointed too.

“Okay,” she said at last, and I knew she didn’t believe me.

I couldn’t leave the flat quick enough after that. I left my mug of tea to go cold in the sink and headed out, slipping my headphones over my head on the way out the door. I could walk to the office in about half an hour but the route was uninspiringly urban, so I tended to occupy myself with audiobooks. Today’s was a title about leadership in business:
Finding Your Authentic Inner CEO
.

The headphones doubled as ear defenders, keeping out both the chilly December air and the annoying strains of Christmas music leaking out of shops and cafes. I couldn’t wait for the end of the festive season.

Roll on January and sanity.

When I reached Sterling House, the tall gleaming edifice that housed not only Quick & Blacks but two law firms and an accountancy practice, I flashed my identity badge at the entry system on the front door. The red eye-level light flashed green, releasing the locked revolving door for my entry and I pushed my way inside, keeping my headphones on, even though I’d switched off the book.

The security guard at the desk—the same guy who was there every other day—was wearing a Santa hat. He was friendly, this one. Always tried to talk to me.

Great.

Keeping my gaze averted, I began walking quickly towards the lifts. The guard didn’t take the hint though.

“Morning,” he called cheerily as I hurried past the desk. “Aren’t you going to have one of these?”

And in that moment, I made a fatal mistake. Instead of pretending to be absorbed by whatever was coming through my headphones and ignoring him, as I usually did, I stopped and yanked my headphones down so that they circled the back of my neck.

“One of what?”

He gestured at a plate on the desk. “Mince pie,” he said cheerfully. “’S’Christmas, innit?”

“Mince pie? Um, no, thanks. I—”

“Go on,” he interrupted with a roguish wink. “You know you want to!”

“No, honestly, I’m fine.”