The Piano Man Project Read Free Page B

with a scandalised arch of her eyebrows.
    Honey grinned at the idea of being too swept away by the tides of passion to go into work at the ripe old age of eighty-three. ‘I sincerely hope so.’
    But when she picked up the receiver, she found herself doubly disappointed. One, it wasn’t a love-swept Mimi and secondly, it was Christopher, the manager of the shop and the attached old people’s residential home. A man of much influence and no charisma, which he masked with borderline rude officiousness.
    ‘Staff meeting. Seventeen hundred hours. Don’t be late or I’ll start without you.’
    ‘But we don’t close until five p.m.’
    ‘So close early. You’re not exactly Tesco’s, are you? And don’t bring those old women, either. Paid staff only. Got that?’
    ‘Loud and clear, Christopher. Loud and clear.’
    Honey sighed as the dial tone clicked in her ear. ‘Yeah. Goodbye to you too,’ she muttered into the empty ether. Would it kill the man to feign politeness? Lord knows how he got people to entrust their frail relatives into his care; Honey wouldn’t trust him with so much as a hamster. It was a great shame, then, that her financial security rested in his sweaty little hands.
    Several long and eventful hours later, Honey dropped her plastic shopping carriers down on her front step and groaned with relief as she flexed her bag-sore fingers. Baked beans and tinned tomatoes were heavy but essential items on the non-cooking cook’s shopping list.
    Her heart lurched at the crunch of broken glass as she shouldered the door open. Shit. Had she been broken into? Honey flicked her eyes over the undamaged panes in the stained glass door, confused, until she noticed the pink tulips strewn across the parquet hallway floor. The very same pink tulips she’d placed in her favourite glass jug in the hallway a couple of days ago to welcome herself home. Or at least it had been her favourite, until now. There was no mending it – whoever had broken it had made a very thorough job.
    By the looks of the still dewy flowers and the huge wet patch on the floor, whatever had happened had happened fairly recently, and as everything else in the shared hallway looked ship-shape, that left only one possible culprit. Only one person who would come through here and smash her jug without bothering to clear up the mess or leave an apology note.
    Thanks a million, Johnny Depp.
    Honey slammed the hallway door shut and leaned against it. It had turned into one hell of a day. Christopher’s words at the earlier staff meeting scrolled around inside her head like ticker-tape on the twenty-four-hour rolling news channels. ‘Funding being pulled. Threat of closure. Six months. Period of consultation.’
    The shop was under the cosh, and unless they secured new funding soon they’d be closed down within a few months. And it wasn’t just the charity shop, either; the whole home was under the hammer, leaving thirty residents facing eviction. What do you do when you find yourself unexpectedly homeless at ninety-seven? Honey had no clue, and Christopher had offered precious little in the way of answers. The day had gone from bad to worse as she’d struggled home with heavy shopping on the packed bus, standing next to a drunk teenager who had touched her bum at least twice. He’d been lucky not to have a can of beans wrapped around his head, but Honey was all out of fight. Until now.
    The sight of her pretty jug and dying flowers strewn across the floor turned out to be the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.
    ‘Hey, rock star!’ Honey yelled at her new neighbour’s door as she picked her way over the shattered glass. ‘Thanks for nothing!’ She dropped her shopping bags by her front door and leaned against it. ‘That was my favourite jug. Just so you know.’
    She paused. Stubborn silence reigned, even though she was sure she’d heard movement beyond his door.
    ‘Fine. I’ll just send you the bill then, shall I?’
    It had