The Piano Man Project Page 0,4
up. She’d murdered it.
She threw a glance at the door opposite.
Hello new neighbour. It’s good to meet you too.
One thing was for sure. This guy was no Simon. There wasn’t a meek or mild bone in his body. Tash would love him – as long as he was loaded. Their wine-fuelled conversation from last night floated back. Her specific. She knocked on his door.
‘Umm, you don’t happen to play the piano, do you?’ she shouted, knowing how funny Nell and Tash would find it when she told them.
He didn’t need to open his door for her to hear him howl fuck off.
On the other side of the door, Hal inched along the hallway. Ten paces to the kitchen work surface, where he’d left the half-empty whisky bottle last night. The cool glass against his sweaty palms soothed his rattled nerves. The wail of that alarm had kicked him straight into DEFCON 1 mode.
Stupid airhead woman. ‘Could you possibly reach it?’ Her question still taunted him. He tipped the bottle to his lips, and the harsh burn of the whisky took the raw edge off his anger.
She’d smelled of strawberry shampoo and bacon smoke when she’d stepped close, and the ever-present laughter behind her voice had told him she didn’t take life seriously.
Well, she should.
He fumbled his way to the bedroom and walked until his shins hit the edge of the mattress. The unmade sheets scratched his skin when he sprawled out, whisky in one hand, the other balled into a tight fist of frustration. He hated this house, and now he hated Strawberry Girl too.
CHAPTER THREE
Honey emptied out the latest bin liners on Monday morning and picked through the worn polyester blouses and elasticated skirts without enthusiasm. When she’d first started work at the charity shop, this had been one of her favourite bits of the day – tipping out the innocuous black bags in the hope of unearthing vintage treasure, or that some It-girl might have cleared out her summer wardrobe of all last season’s Prada to make room for her winter collection.
It hadn’t taken long for the shine to wear off. Honey had soon come to realise that the average age of people who gave to charity was around eighty. Either that or it was families clearing the decks of a deceased relative’s possessions. Cheap chain store separates. Moth-eaten dresses or suits that had been held on to for sentimental reasons that had died with their owners. Thrift shop jewellery with broken catches. Chipped teacups long since separated from their saucers. Stiff leatherette handbags with brass clasps and screwed-up bingo tickets in the bottom, or a yellowed letter that relatives hadn’t cared enough to hold on to. Honey could never bring herself to throw treasured mementoes away, so she slipped them into a drawer in the old bureau that doubled up as her desk in the small back room of the shop.
‘Tea.’ Lucille popped out of the kitchenette, a vision in tan support tights and an egg yolk-yellow sundress cinched in at the waist by a rhinestone belt. Lucille and her sister Mimi were the lifeblood of the charity shop, full-time volunteers who asked for nothing in return for their services apart from company and the occasional bright string of beads. They were magpies for colour and sparkle; or rather a pair of colourful canaries, singing wartime hits as they fluttered from customer to customer and batted their eyelashes against their heavily rouged cheeks to encourage a sale. Honey adored them both; fabulous aunts she’d chosen rather than had foisted upon her by the inconvenience of bloodline.
‘Thanks, Lucille.’ Honey took the dainty teacup and saucer. ‘No Mimi yet this morning?’
Lucille bent to pull a sequinned dress from the pile at Honey’s feet and shook it out at arm’s length in front of her. ‘She was entertaining last night.’ Her perfectly lipsticked mouth puckered into a tight, sour little raspberry as she turned the dress inside out to squint at the label.
‘Was she really?’ Honey whistled. ‘Not with Billy Bobbysocks again?’
Lucille sniffed. Her sister was far too smitten with Billy for her liking. Exactly what Mimi saw in him, with his ridiculous quiff and purple drainpipe trousers that were indecently tight for a man well into his eighties, was anyone’s guess.
Honey glanced down to hide her smile. Both Lucille and Mimi lived in fear of the other leaving, when history really ought to have taught them better. Men had come and gone in each of their lives, but their