Page 6 of Cover Story

‘… Actually, he’s not blocked on email. He can’t tell if I’ve read them, so given they’re long and rambling and make it clear he’s off his nut, maybe I’m best off hanging onto them as proof.’

‘Proof of …?’ Shilpa trailed off, eyes widening. ‘So you do think it could end up with the police?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never had relations with an obsessive harasser before.’

‘If he’s not going to leave his wife, what the fuck is he even offering you? Lifelong mistress?’

‘This is irrelevant, given my period of insanity is over and I’ve reclaimed my brain from the Lost Property bin.’

‘I know that, I’m trying to figure out what he’s asking you to do? Apart from the obvious.’

‘“Wait until my sixteen-year-old kid has left home”, was the line,’ Bel said, her heart and bones heavy with self-disgust at even repeating it. ‘He didn’t mean it. Hethinkshe means it. The weird thing with Anthony is he completely persuades himself before he attempts to persuade you, so he’s like an evangelist preacher of his own fantasies.’

‘What if you forwarded the emails to his wife?’

They’d been round these houses before, but Bel didn’t entirely mind retracing the route. She wanted the reassurance ofrunning through it again, rehearsing her reasoning. Convincing herself.

‘Assuming his wife doesn’t know and hasn’t accepted infidelity in the package with being married to Ant, which is a big assume. If I do that, ratting to his wife is going to give him legitimate cause to come after me. Imagine if she threw him out and he was free to pursue me twenty-four seven.’

Bel shuddered.

‘I don’t get it,’ Shilpa said. ‘Ireallydon’t get it. Does he think he’s going to hassle you into wanting him?’

Bel felt a little clammy.

‘He’s like a debt collection agency except I don’t know what the debt is or how I’m meant to pay it.’

‘What a maniac. If he’d wanted to be with you, he could’ve. He ended your relationship with Tim.’

‘No, I definitely did that,’ Bel said, mouth dry.

Anthony was her manic episode, a shaming lapse in judgment and morals that he wouldn’t let her forget. A horror film:I Know Who You Did Last Summer.

‘Most people would be so embarrassed to beg and plead. What does he think he’s achieving?! What’s the kick, when you’re telling him to get lost?’ Shilpa said.

Bel shrugged, though she didn’t feel casual.

‘Intimidation? And control, I suppose.’

‘Yeah. Well he doesn’t have that,’ Shilpa said, opening her phone to find spring rolls.

Bel thought that Shilpa’s description of how Bel had handled it so far made that debatable. A voice in her head told her:it’ll get worse before it gets better, and she was ignoring it.

4

‘Tell us about one of your podcast greatest hits, then, Macauley,’ Aaron said, in the 3.00 p.m. lull, the energy dip phase of the nine to five. And it was a Thursday: not yet the weekend, no Toby check-in until tomorrow. Outside it was no-jacket-required late springtime muggy, in here it was a dingy sweat box. The mood felt distinctly ‘get a Diet Coke, doom scroll and piss about’.

‘Was it like MP’s expenses, did a York MP claim for an ornamental duck pond and a load of dildos?’ Aaron said. ‘Or did you probe why Wetherspoon’s chips are so many calories when you only get about six of them?’

Bel recognised the highly specific variety of teasing that Aaron was using with her, in front of a studiously unimpressed, blank Connor Adams. (He was a real charisma powerhouse. He’d worked in near silence since his arrival on Monday, except when asking Aaron for more to do. As Bel’s mother liked to say, lucky he’s got those looks, he needs them.)

To the untrained observer, Aaron’s attention might look like mockery. In the world of journalism and in the north of England, Bel sensed it was a compliment.

He wasn’t putting her on the spot so much as putting her in a spotlight, because he thought she could tap dance.

‘Erm … There was the one that was mentioned in the award,’Bel said, then paused, aware this could still be a bear trapfor making a boastful arse of herself. ‘… Which was about the “Ask for Amy” initiative the police and Mayor’s office started. I’d seen the signs in loads of places back at home and thought, has anyone stress tested whether it works? So I did.’

‘What’s “Ask for Amy”?’ Aaron said. As crime reporter, she was surprised he’d not heard of it– it had rolled out beyond York. Lovely male privilege.

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