Page 15 of Cover Story

Her ex, Tim, used to say everyone was easier on the opposite sex than their own. ‘You’ve the A to Z for your own sex but the other one you don’t know the road layout, and you get lost more easily.’

Here might be a prime example. It wasn’t that Connor wasn’t vain, it was that he wasn’t grateful. His mild affront was likely due to a sense of: ‘Yes, AND? Go scrub my staircases in the north wing, wench’ entitlement that could be seen by Google Earth.

A suspicion reinforced by his jumpy response to a phonecall that allegedly, couldn’t wait– why did Bel get the feeling he was pretending he had urgent business, to make it clear he mattered?

‘Putting you through to Air Force One now, hold for the President, Mr Adams,’ drawled Aaron, as they both observed Connor scowling determinedly, gripping his handset, and Bel laughed.

A few moments later she saw Connor grinning in a devilish fashion and thought, hah, knew it. Urgent my arse. His expression was disorientating, though, a stray flash of an entirely different person. One they certainly wouldn’t get to meet. He stalked back in and she felt the strain of him trying to find a socialising gear. Bel knew it was good practice to suggest thisget to know youto people who had no other contacts in the city, but she made a mental note to Aaron to suggest Friday was too big an evening to give away.

‘What made you switch careers to journalism?’ Bel said, over their panchkraut and potato pancakes, and then recalled, with heart-rate bump, she wasn’t meant to know this. ‘Mmm … Toby says you were in finance?’

Quick lie, good rescue.

‘Yeah. I’d always wanted to be a reporter, wrote a lot for my university newspaper, and so on,’ Connor said.

He pushed his chestnut brown hair back from a classically good brow. Bel watched the muscles in his jaw move and wondered how many women he’d been mean to.

‘Which university?’ said Aaron, eyes as keen as a hawk over the rim of his beer glass.

Connor looked like he spotted a trap.

‘Bristol,’ he said, and Aaron flicked a look at Bel. Aaronwould have preferred Oxford, Cambridge or Durham, to suit his prejudices, she felt sure. He was working up a case file, a profile of offending.

‘But I graduated from a politics and history degree, was skint in a house share dump in London and my older brother persuaded me it was smart to take a trainee position in the City. He was a SPAD at the time, now a political consultant in the States. I did that thing a lot of people do, I guess, try a career on for size without really thinking you’re choosing it. Then you wake up ten years later and suddenly, it’s who you are.’

Bel nodded.

‘Was there a particular moment you realised it wasn’t for you?’ Bel said.

The waiter arrived with more beers, and Aaron added:

‘Do you prefer newspapers so far?’

To no surprise whatsoever to Bel, Connor ignored her and answered Aaron.

‘I now have a lot less money,’ he said, smiling, and Bel reflexively smiled back and then wished she hadn’t. He really got under her skin, blanking her question was just the latest microaggression. This sense he was better than his company radiated from him, and based on what? The personality of a microwave and the looks of a shitBridgertonbrother?

‘I like it a lot. It’s interesting, no two days are the same, you feel like you meet people and get involved in society, somehow. Instead of merely profiteering from it. What about you, what made you go into journalism?’

‘My dad worked on theManchester Evening News,’ Aaron said. ‘Deputy editor. And my grandad.’

‘Oh wow, a nepotistic Parry dynasty,’ Bel said.

‘Family trade. Beats selling Croc charms in the Arndale, eh,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to make any money on wikiFeet. I’ve got talons like a barn owl.’

‘What’re Croc charms?’ Connor said.

‘Things you use to Croc-jazzle your Crocs with trinkets,’ Bel said. ‘Some are supposed to look like weird little toes poking out the holes.’

‘Good God!’ Connor said and Bel couldn’t help smiling: Connor in his immaculate white shirt, thick creamy material that looked like cartridge paper.

‘What about you,Miss Macauley? Why journalism?’ Aaron said.

‘I always loved writing stories as a kid. I used to make a mini newspaper with exclusives about everyone in the family– even splashed on catching my diabetic uncle hiding Wispas in plant pots, and got him in trouble. Got the taste for controversy. After university I got a job at theYorkshire Postand they let me podcast in the evenings and weekends. As long as I offered them any storiesI thought they might want first, which they generally didn’t. Investigations have become my thing. So when you say I’m a blogger-podcaster, dilettante bullshitter who only self-identifies as a journalist, I’ve got my shorthand and done my apprenticeship.’

She grinned and slid a glance at Connor, who remained stonily impassive.

‘I know you’re proper, I just think it’s a cushy gig! Can you sign yourself off for, like, weeks at a time? I’d be in the casino,’ Aaron said.

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