The Piano Man Project Page 0,80
in peril, and now Hal in the kitchen with Skinny Steve. Passing through the dining room, she came to a sudden halt and stared around her. It looked different, and it smelled delicious, as if she’d walked into a restaurant from the street.
The clock on the wall told her it was a little after two, and the array of food laid out told her that there was going to be a party soon. She could have cried with relief at the sight of tables pushed together under the window to form a buffet bar, neat white cloths covering the joins. The dining room door swung open from the kitchen and Lucille appeared, laden down with a covered platter of cheese and onion rolls.
‘Old Don’s favourite,’ she smiled weakly as she made room for them on the table. ‘How’s Mimi?’
‘She’s not too bad. The paramedic said it’s a mild sprain. I’ve just left her resting in her room.’
Lucille shook her head. ‘I should never have told her like that when she was chained up. I just thought it might be easier.’
‘Maybe you should go and have a chat now everything’s quietened down. It looks as if everything’s under control here.’
Lucille smiled, properly this time. ‘That man in there is marvellous,’ she sighed like a teenager, her hand fluttering near the neck of her spring green floral dress. ‘So charismatic.’
Another victim of the Benedict Hallam peculiar school of charm. ‘Go and see Mimi.’
As Lucille left through one door, Skinny Steve appeared from the kitchen with a large, ornate cake, and a heavy one too if the way his slight frame swaying with effort was anything to go by.
His face broke into a wide grin when he spotted her standing in the middle of the room. Depositing the cake quickly on the side table laid out in preparation for it, he opened his mouth and let out a silent yell and waved his hands around in excitement. If this were charades, Honey would have guessed at ‘Man overcome with excitement at meeting Bono’. And then she realised. It was ‘Man overcome with excitement at meeting Benedict Hallam’. Victim number two. Hal’s hit rate was impressive.
Steve jerked his thumb towards the kitchen.
‘He’s proper famous,’ he mouthed. ‘And he’s taught me how to make sausage rolls.’
Steve pointed at the evidence, a plate of golden gorgeousness on the table.
‘Looks like that isn’t all he’s taught you,’ Honey said, her gaze travelling over the plates of sandwiches and niceties on the table.
‘Where did the cake come from?’
Steve shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he stage-whispered, as shiny eyed as a five-year-old who’d just got his first bike for Christmas. ‘Hal made some calls and a van arrived with it ten minutes later. He’s, like, amazing.’ His expression turned suddenly serious. ‘But listen, Honey. You can’t tell anyone he’s here, okay? He’s undercover.’ Steve’s brow furrowed. ‘Do you think he might be making one of those programmes for the TV where the boss pretends to be somebody else?’
Loving Steve’s enthusiasm but doubting his sanity, Honey smiled. ‘I don’t think so, no, but his secret’s safe with me. Is he through there?’
Steve nodded furtively, and then ambled out of the dining room in the direction of the loo, leaving Honey looking at the door leading to the kitchen.
‘It’s beyond weird seeing you here,’ she said from the doorway, looking at Hal perched at the work surface, eating a bowl of soup.
‘It’s beyond weird being here,’ he said, seemingly unsurprised to hear her voice. ‘There’s soup in the pan if you haven’t had lunch.’
Honey ladled out a bowl of the creamy soup, sniffing the steam.
‘It’s just leek and potato. Steve made it.’
‘Skinny Steve made this?’
‘Went down a storm at lunchtime.’
‘I’m not surprised. I don’t think they’ve eaten soup that didn’t come out of a tin in the last five years.’
Honey grabbed a spoon and sat down along from Hal at the counter.
‘You met Lucille, then,’ she said, blowing on her spoon before eating it. ‘Jesus, this is gorgeous!’
She didn’t miss the pride that slid over Hal’s features before he shut it down. ‘It’s just soup.’
‘Yeah, and Brad Pitt is just a man. Not all men are born equal.’
Hal mulled on that. ‘Just eat it.’
Honey was more than happy to do as she was told, and took the chance to properly observe Hal outside of his comfort zone for the first time since she’d met him. He hadn’t strayed far from the stool, but all the same he looked more at home than