The Piano Man Project Page 0,116

for her trouble was a jarred shoulder, a still-closed door and a growing case of full-on panic.

‘Hal!’ she shouted, battering on his door with her fists. Christ. He had to be hurt, she was yelling loud enough to wake the dead. She opened the door and walked out onto the pavement barefoot, pressing her face against his front windows with her heart in her mouth. His wooden blinds were half open, and squinting, she could make out the clinically tidy room. She let out her breath and leaned her back against the window for support, winded by the relief of not seeing him sprawled on the floor. Turning back to look again, she watched the empty space for a few minutes.

‘Come on, Hal,’ she whispered. ‘Walk in with bed hair and whisky in your hand. Walk in, scowling. Just please God, walk in.’

The possibility that he’d fallen and banged his head in the bathroom or asphyxiated himself in bed tortured her. Should she call the police to break in? Would they even bother to look for a grown man who’d been seen less than twenty-four hours previously? She made her way around the back and shouldered the scarcely used side gate open with a hard shove, more frightened than she’d ever been in her life.

His bedroom blind was unhelpfully drawn and his bathroom window was opaque, but his backdoor handle turned freely in her hand.

It wasn’t locked.

‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,’ she whispered, stepping inside, as terrified as the heroine in a horror movie even though it was broad daylight and she knew better than to make the schoolgirl error of running up the stairs. Scanning the lounge and kitchen quickly, she confirmed what she already knew. They were empty. Returning to the hallway, she looked at the bedroom and bathroom doors, both of them closed.

Placing her clammy hand over the bedroom door handle, she turned it slowly, and then at the last moment threw it open and almost jumped inside in her haste to speed up the agony.

Empty.

Honey almost doubled over with relief, gasping, able to put away the horrific images she’d conjured of him lying ghost pale on the bed.

And then she remembered the bathroom.

Stepping back into the hallway, she stood still outside the final door.

‘Please don’t let him be in here,’ she said out loud. ‘Please no.’

She turned the handle and pushed the door slowly, all the time expecting resistance from his body on the floor in the small room. It swung easily, all the way back. Only when she was one hundred per cent certain that he wasn’t in there did she let the air back into her lungs and the tears rain down her face.

She’d spent the last half an hour terrified that she’d find him, and now she at least knew he wasn’t dead, she was even more terrified that she wouldn’t.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

A silver people carrier pulled up outside the home a couple of mornings later and a dark-haired care worker wheeled her charge into the building.

‘Could I possibly speak with Lucille and Mimi please?’ the man in the wheelchair asked the care worker walking through reception.

Nikki smiled. ‘Of course. Who can I tell them is calling?’

The man straightened his shoulders.

‘Please tell them it’s their brother.’

And so it was that Mimi, Lucille and Ernie sat down together for the first time in their lives that morning and shared a pot of tea.

Mimi found herself stripped of any lingering anger or reticence by the kind, frail man who so resembled her, and when he held both of their hands in his trembling ones and his tired eyelids drifted down midway through their conversation, she held on to him until he woke again and apologised for his terrible manners.

‘It’s not you who needs to apologise,’ she said. ‘It’s me. I was a silly old fool not to see you sooner.’

Mimi hated the fact that time obviously wasn’t on Ernie’s side. What had she been thinking of? She was thoroughly ashamed of herself.

‘I couldn’t believe it when I saw you both yesterday on the news,’ he smiled. ‘You first, Lucille, and then of course you, Mimi. I’d have known you anywhere.’

‘You both look like our mother,’ Lucille said.

Ernie’s face turned wistful. ‘I’ve never looked like anyone else before.’

‘Two peas in a pod,’ Lucille smiled, pouring them all more tea.

‘I came to give you something,’ Ernie said, looking around for Carol, who’d tactfully taken a seat across the other side of the conservatory with