Christmas Lights Read online

  Instead… they rampaged.

  She couldn’t remember a Christmas when the tree hadn’t been vandalised. And now, the public were demanding one and claiming that the entire festive season, and the town community spirit, would be destroyed unless they had one.

  She drove around the series of one-way streets until she ended up around the back of the Town Hall building. There was a nine foot high wall that encircled the back of the building, inside was a small car park, accessibly only by a large automated, metal gate.

  She entered the car park unseen and picked up her bag and coat from the passenger seat and entered the building through the back door. She walked through the corridors towards the front lobby and the main stairwell, greeting people as she walked.

  From the stairs, she could hear the chants more clearly. They were calling for her to resign, and someone had been wonderfully creative with a Christmas carol which now contained her name. Or rather the title Nightmare Nightingale, which she had been gifted with a few years previous.

  As she climbed the stairs, she heard the chanting suddenly get louder as the automatic front doors swooshed open and some employees entered the lobby.

  “Bloody hell,” one of them exclaimed.

  Kay paused on the stairs and turned to check they were all right. The three people who had just entered looked frightened but no worse for wear.

  “Everything okay?” She called down.

  They looked up at her and nodded. The door opened again and Steven entered.

  “Wow,” he said. “You’d think we closed the hospital and declared a six o’clock curfew.”

  “If only they showed the same level of excitement when we opened the new hospital wing, or when we put new benches in the park,” Kay commented. “They don’t say a peep about the new car park being built by the shopping centre. But you take away the opportunity for them to adorn, and later vandalise, a decomposing tree in the middle of the high street and there are riots.”

  “People love Christmas,” Steven explained as he climbed the stairs to meet her.

  They continued walking the rest of the way to the top floor together.

  “It’s a tree. We still have the Christmas lights In the high street, and the festival. I approved the market to extend their hours, and we organised for the French and Germany market traders to stop on the way. I waived the usual fees so the mobile ice-skating rink could be brought back. We have a blow-up snow globe coming to the square, as long as it’s not full of protestors by then. But they focus on the damn tree.”

  Steven remained silent. She knew he didn’t want to say too much, he was her assistant and valued his job. She trusted him to speak up when it was necessary. He simply didn’t have a lot to say on this matter, he knew the costs of the tree were too high. And he’d known that people would demonstrate the loss of the tree.

  “Hopefully it will all blow over soon,” she muttered.

  “Hopefully,” he agreed.

  He didn’t sound certain.

  Chapter 7

  Millie sang along to the edited version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer loud and proud. She was pleased to see so many people had come along to the protest. It helped that Bromford had a university and many of the students were politically active, and happy to sacrifice a Monday morning in bed.

  Her sign had gotten some good comments, but she definitely didn’t have the best one there. Some people had clearly put a lot of thought into theirs, while Millie’s was a last minute job at best.

  “Millie you’re here!”

  She turned to see Laura approaching her through the crowd of people.

  “I am, great turn out,” Millie said.

  “Yes, we’re really pleased. We’ll probably have some more this afternoon too, we managed to get a few mums to spread the word. Once they’ve dropped their kids off, they’ll hopefully drop in as well.”

  “That’s great news. I’m really impressed how quickly you guys managed to mobilise people.”

  Laura smiled but sighed. “Thanks, we missed getting Nightingale though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Laura held up her phone. “We have someone in the council office who is on Twitter, they say that she’s in the building. She must have sneaked in somehow. We thought there was only one entrance but there must be another. With such a big building, it’s hard to know. Most of the council staff park at the car park across the street and have to walk across this square. But somehow, she didn’t.” Laura shrugged. “Oh well, it’s annoying but she can still hear us!”

  Millie nodded. “She definitely can. And I’ve spoken to a few people who are staying all day. I definitely will.” She gestured to her backpack with a thumb. “I have all my supplies.”

  “You’re a star, thanks Millie,” Laura said, beaming. “I’ll come and find you later, better go and speak to the press.”

  “Good luck!”

  Millie watched Laura disappear back into the crowd. She was really pleased with how quickly Laura and her friends had managed to organise a peaceful, effective protest. But it annoyed her that somehow this Nightingale woman had managed to give them the slip. She was the main person they wanted to talk to, and somehow she’d gotten in the building without them knowing.

  Millie made her way through the crowd, around the police who had started setting up metal barricades at the front of the building, and around the side. She walked around the impressive looking building, wondering what everyone inside thought about what was happening outside.

  Were they all simply irritated at struggling to get into work? Did they agree with the protestors and were secretly happy for their presence?

  She carried on walking and noticed that the back of the building connected to a high-brick wall. She walked further still and saw a metal gate, she looked between the brick wall and the gate and could see a small courtyard out the back of the building, inside were three cars.

  “Gotcha,” she whispered.

  Somehow Nightingale must have driven around and decided to park behind the building that day. Very wise. And very sneaky.

  Millie hurried back to the protestors at the front of the building and found one of the organisers, she told him about the gate and that she suspected that was how Nightingale had arrived. And how she would presumably have to leave as well.

  He grinned widely and patted her on the shoulder, telling her she’d done a great job.

  Millie smiled and went back to joining the main group and singing yet another edited Christmas carol. She knew what would happen now, the organisers would split the group in half. Half would remain at the front of the building, the others would go to the gate at the back.

  She couldn’t help but smile. Nightingale must have felt so pleased with herself at getting into the office without having to pass the protestors. It wouldn’t be the same at the end of the day.

  Millie felt like she’d won a small battle. Even though she had no idea who Nightingale was, she’d already become to villain on the Christmas tree saga.

  Chapter 8

  “Come in,” Kay instructed without looking up from the letter she was reading on her desk.

  “Er, Professor?”

  She let out a small sigh and looked up, removing her reading glasses to look at the security guard. “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, but the protestors are now at both entrances, the front and the rear car park.” He shifted his stance a little. “Due to the cutbacks, most of the security staff will be going home in ten minutes.”

  “Ah.”

  Security were locking up the building at six as they usually did, an hour after most of the staff had gone home.

  Ordinarily, Kay would stay a few more hours to get some more work done before heading home. She had her own key and could lock up and set the alarm when she left.

  However, with the protestors around, security obviously didn’t want to leave her alone in the building. And, to be fair, she didn’t want to attempt to leave on her own later
on in case the protestors decided to remain.

  The fact that they had now discovered the back entrance to the building was an issue. It meant that she’d have to drive out past them alone, something she really didn’t look forward to. At least if she went now, she’d have security to help move the protestors away from her car.

  “Give me a couple of minutes to pack up,” she said. “I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

  He nodded and quickly backed out of her office.

  She closed her laptop and put it into her bag and cleared the other items on her desk. She’d have to continue her work from home that evening. As she got her coat from the coatrack, she heard the protestors weary singing. Being on the fourth floor had saved her from the majority of the racket coming from outside, but now the local streets were quiet, the sound travelled.

  She shook her head. If only the protestors knew how little work had gotten done in the building that day as a direct result of their presence. People staring out of the window, conversations had when people should have been working. The delay to people being able to get into work in the morning, and again when they wanted to pop out for lunch. Many hours of work had gone down the drain that day, but Kay was sure that not a single protestor would have considered that.

  They were far too busy cannibalising every Christmas song known to man, attempting to cram her name into every one in the least flattering way possible.

  She sighed. There was nothing to be done.

  She grabbed her things and exited her office, turning off the light as she went. The building seemed to be empty. The solitary night security guard walked along the upper corridor and bid her goodnight. Every other office was dark.

  Kay couldn’t blame them. The pay was poor and Christmas was approaching, she suspected a lot of the employees with family were preparing for the festive season. And probably wanted to escape the never-ending din from outside.

  She met up with three security officers in the lobby and they escorted her to the back of the building.

  “Get in your car and drive up to the gate,” Terry explained. “Once you’re ready, I’ll open the gate and Mo and Johno will disperse the crowd, don’t hang about. Just go.”

  She nodded her understanding.

  “Oh, and Professor?” He said as they approached the door to the courtyard.

  She stopped and looked at him, an eyebrow raised.

  “Just, you know, ignore what they’re shouting.”

  He turned and opened the door. At first she couldn’t hear anything, the four of them stepped out into the dimly lit courtyard.

  And then she heard it.

  Profanities were being yelled from behind the gate. There was something coldly terrifying about the shouts coming from the dark, and beyond a gate where she couldn’t see. They were calling her names, shouting that she needed to quit.

  And worse.

  The protestors at the back gate were a different breed to the ones on the front steps. While the ones at the front were covered in tinsel and reindeer ear headbands, these were louder and ruder. These embodied the mob mentality where violence was born.

  “Professor?” Terry questioned.

  She realised she’d been standing still and shook herself awake. She hurried towards her car, tossing her belongings into the front passenger seat, slamming the door behind her and locking all of the doors.

  With a deep breath, she started the engine, moved the car closer to the gates and prepared herself.

  Terry gave her the thumbs up and the two other men walked in front of her car as the gates opened. As soon as they were able to, they walked forward and encouraged the crowds back. There were only thirty or forty people, but it was more than enough to cause Kay to swallow hard.

  The headlights of her car illuminated the angry faces and she slowly started to drive forward, wary that someone may leap out. The last thing she needed was to hit someone with her car.

  She was almost through the crowd when two men surged forward and struck her driver’s window with their fists. She couldn’t hear what they were shouting, her heart was beating too fast to be able to hear anything.

  Terry pulled them back and instructed her to go; so she did.

  A few seconds later, she pulled away from the crowd, pressed her foot to the accelerator and left the scene.

  Not long after that, she was on the main road and heading home along with all the other commuters. Luckily, traffic was never that bad in Bromford.

  It got busy but traffic rarely came to a standstill. Which was a good thing because Kay felt a desperate need to keep moving, to put space between her and the group baying for her blood.

  This whole Christmas tree business couldn’t come to an end soon enough.

  Chapter 9

  Millie opened the front door to the flat and shuffled awkwardly inside with her large bag and homemade sign. She propped the sign up against the wall and pulled her gloves off with her teeth before lowering her hands to the radiator in the hallway.

  “Ahh, heaven,” she mumbled.

  Claire came out of the kitchen with a mug of tea in her hands, still in her work suit.

  “There she is,” Claire announced. “How did it go? Has she caved yet?”

  Millie laughed. “No, not yet. But it was great. There must have been about a hundred people there, at one point maybe one-fifty. We had a couple of points where people started to drift off, especially when it got dark. But Laura made some calls and some other people showed up.”

  “Cool, want a cup of tea?” Claire offered.

  “Please.” Millie reached down and untied her boots, grateful that she’d thought ahead and worn her thickest, fluffiest boots that day. As well as her thick hiking socks. The problem with standing still holding up a sign was that it got cold, fast.

  She shrugged out of her coat and her scarf and hung them up before joining Claire in the kitchen.

  “I saw a few pictures on Twitter,” Claire said. “Looked like a great turnout. Saw your sign too, people liked it.”

  “Some people had great signs. I need to up my game,” Millie admitted.

  “Did they say anything? Like, officially? Send anyone out with a statement or anything?” Claire asked.

  Millie shook her head. “Nah. The police turned up pretty quick but they were nice, didn’t have much to say. At the end of the day we started to gather around the back entrance because we knew Nightingale would have to leave there.”

  “Oh, so you saw the much-loathed Professor Nightingale?”

  “Not really.” Millie sat at the table. “It was dark and when her car came out, people kind of surged towards it.”

  There had been a point where Millie had been a little concerned. Some of the people Laura had called on to make up the dwindling numbers didn’t even seem to know what they were protesting. Not that that small matter seemed to bother them. They were angry and happy to show it.

  When people had started hammering on the car, Millie had taken a few steps back. She’d been involved in protests that had sadly turned violent before and she had no intention of being arrested the day before she started a new job.

  There were always a few bad eggs who were just looking to cause trouble. Millie was just happy that the vast majority had behaved themselves throughout the day.

  “What is she a professor of, anyway?” Millie asked.

  Claire shrugged a shoulder while picking up a tea bag from the caddy. “Dunno. Just know that she is one. Being a Tory bitch, probably.”

  Millie smirked. She didn’t know Kay Nightingale, hadn’t done any personal research on her. She seemed to be pretty disliked by most of the people she’d met that day. But Millie had vowed to do her own research before saying anything about the woman. Sometimes it was easy to get swept along with what other’s thought. To end up disliking someone and having no idea why.

  “You should go to the meeting tomorrow,” Claire said.

  “What meeting?”

  “The council meeting. She holds a c
ouncil meeting every two weeks, in the Town Hall, they have large community rooms in there. She holds a questions and answer session. I heard a few people are going to talk about the Christmas tree, and other stuff. Will give you a chance to see her in person.”

  “Are you going?” Millie asked.

  “No, I’m working late.” Claire rolled her eyes. “Christmas is great for extra hours, I can’t say no to the money. Even if I’d really rather be out with Laura and the gang making sure we get our damn tree.”

  “I’ll go on your behalf then,” Millie said. “Will be good to go to a council meeting, get to know the council, see what she has to say for herself.”

  “Will be a long day,” Claire commented. “New job and then the council meeting.”

  Millie nodded. “It will. But I’ll be fine. In fact, I’m looking forward to it. I’m really invested in this tree business now.”

  “Ah, you’ve found your new cause,” Claire joked. “Remember when you really thought the local library needed to have more LGBT books?”

  Millie laughed. “Oh, yeah, that campaign went on for weeks. That old woman at the library just wasn’t having any of it.”

  “She wasn’t,” Claire agreed. “But you were like a dog with a bone. And you won.”

  Millie grinned at the memory. “I did, didn’t I?”

  Claire finished making the tea and placed the mug in front of Millie. “You did. And soon, we’ll be celebrating another Millie Yates win. A Christmas tree, the largest that Bromford has ever seen!”

  Chapter 10

  Unlike her previous eighty minute underground commute, Millie could now walk to work. Which also meant she could stay in bed later, and walk. She had managed to convince herself that all the walking to and from work would have her in peak physical condition in no time.

  Of course, she hadn’t factored in the huge amount of Christmas treats she was ingesting now it was December.

  She’d deal with that when January came.