The Piano Man Project Page 0,105

then held one out in an attempt at professionalism. Her tearstained face and messed-up hair did little to back her up, but thankfully she didn’t realise that she looked every inch a woman who’d found and lost the love of her life in the space of five minutes.

She nodded. ‘I am.’

‘And I assume you have the necessary permits, and you applied to the council to have this road closed?’

Honey opened her mouth and closed it again. There were no permits, or closed road applications. They’d hoped the event would attract a crowd of course, but by crowd she’d envisaged forty or fifty, rather than hundreds. It was peaceful, but it was undeniably huge, and traffic had ground to a halt when drivers stopped to see what was going on and left their cars to join the protest. Horns honked, and Nell had eventually made a sign and put it up at the end of the road to politely advise people to come and join the protest or go round a different way.

‘Are you an officer of the law?’ a voice bellowed from down the pavement, and they all peered down to see Christopher hanging as far out from the railings as he could manage and waving his free arm to attract attention. ‘I’m the manager of this home and I demand …’

His demands, however, went unheard, drowned out in a flash by the sound of Robin clapping his hands and yelling ‘Five, six, seven, eight!’ in a theatrical singsong voice and swinging an invisible lasso above his head before performing a tight grapevine along the pavement. Beside him, all nine of his parole boys fell perfectly into step, completely obliterating Christopher from view aside from the occasional flash of his hand wildly poking out. The crowd went wild for them, joining in the boot-scooting chorus and doing their best to pick up the steps until a good half of the gathering were line dancing in the street, and the residents clapped along and cheered from their seats.

Honey clapped her hands to her face, tears coursing down her cheeks as she watched Robin’s diminutive frame and huge hair bounce around, his pied piper status forever cemented, along with their friendship.

The police officer cleared his throat. ‘Those permits we talked about?’

Honey opened her mouth to confess all, and at the same time Billy’s voice boomed through the air as he strutted down the path with a loudhailer against his lips.

‘Officer Nigel Thomson, as I live and breathe. I knew you when you were knee high to a grasshopper and your mother kept The Cock!’

Honey watched as the middle-aged police officer narrowed his eyes at Billy as he drew near, then broke into a huge smile and pushed his notebook back into his pocket, permits forgotten.

‘Uncle Bill!’ The officer put his hand out and pumped Billy’s arm, and then pulled him into a stiff bear hug.

‘I wasn’t actually his uncle,’ Billy mouthed at Honey over his shoulder with an arch wink. Watching Billy walk Officer Thomson back to his car a little while later, she let out a small sigh of relief at another near-disaster averted. When today was over, she needed to take a long holiday in a quiet place, preferably alone on a desert island with a fridge full of chocolate and wine.

‘Umm, Honeysuckle, dear,’ Lucille piped up, craning her neck towards the end of the road. ‘Is that a TV van?’

Hold that thought. It looked as if that one-way ticket to paradise would have to go on hold for a while longer yet.

‘Troy Masters can put his boom mike down my pants any time he wants,’ Tash murmured as they stood watching the TV cameraman get himself set up while Troy Masters, a well-known face from the BBC twenty-four-hour rolling news channel, chatted easily to the crowds.

‘You’ve been watching too many American TV shows, Tash,’ Nell said. ‘We still say trousers here, remember?’

‘Oh, I know the difference perfectly well, Nellie,’ Tash’s laugh was pure filth.

‘Never mind all that,’ Honey said. ‘They want to interview me on screen in half an hour, and we all know that I’m going to be rubbish!’

Nell and Tash exchanged a worried look over her head.

‘Do you happen to have your make-up bag with you?’ Tash said, way too casually.

Honey shook her head. It had been the last thing on her mind that morning.

‘Hairspray? A comb?’ Nell said, tucking Honey’s wild hair behind her ear optimistically.

‘Nothing. I’ve got nothing, and no clue what to say.’

After a