Page 66 of Cover Story

Aaron’s line about green bananas came back to her and made her feel sick. Erin made Bel feel like a protective older sister. She had protectiveness going spare: her brother Miles was six foot by their mid-teens, and very popular, so he’d never needed it.

‘Wine?’ Ian said, waggling the bottle at a visibly affrighted Erin.

‘No thanks, Coke Zero if you have it,’ she said.

‘I have it because you drink it, dear niece.’ Ian stage-whispered to Bel. ‘Gen Z don’t drink.’

As Ian plinked ice into a glass in his fridge door ice-maker, Bel smiled at Erin.

‘Investigations Editor, that’s such a cool job title,’ Erin said, dumping a tasselled bag onto a spare chair. ‘Like you work atThe Daily Planetor something.’

‘Yes, it’s a big vote of confidence in me I’ve now got to justify,’ Bel said.

‘I love your podcast,’ Erin said, ‘I’ve just finished the one about the estate agent murders in 1996. The story your aunt worked on.’

‘Oh, thank you! Tamara’s are big shoes to fill. Well, in real life, small shoes and always stilettoes.’

Erin smiled and look awed and shy, though she’d spoken with quiet confidence. Bel cast her mind back to how being twenty-four was to be full of such contradictions.

‘Really appreciate you meeting me and sorry it’s for a crappy reason,’ Bel said.

Ian put a soft drink in front of Erin and said: ‘I’ve got to phone my mother, so I thought I’d leave you two to speak in private for a while?’

‘Say hi to Gran,’ Erin said.

He disappeared off upstairs as Bel turned to Erin, who looked like she wanted to disappear inside her jacket.

Bel could tell she needed to keep talking until Erin relaxed enough to contribute.

‘If it’s easiest, I’m going to tell you what your uncle told me, and you can interrupt and correct me, or add, when necessary?’ Bel said.

As Bel described her time in the office, Erin said: ‘When Glenn spoke to me, it was like a celebrity noticing me. Heisa celebrity …’

Erin’s self-loathing radiated from her and Bel understood it instinctively. You don’t only deal with hating them, you hate yourself. Your self-image as someone who’d see through those kinds of tactics takes a battering.

‘He made you feel valued and noticed,’ Bel said, nodding. ‘You’d been anxious in a new environment and here’s this magic person saying it’s going to be all right … it’s like a holiday romance, isn’t it?’

‘Exactly,’ Erin said.

(Erin was twenty-four, how did Bel fall for a lowlife flatterer at thirty-four?)

‘… When he got in touch after I left and said he’d love to help me with career next steps, I believed him,’ Erin said. ‘But he said not to tell my uncle in case he got worried about correct procedure and nepotism, you know?There’s rules around interns.That was the massive warning sign but I wanted to think he liked me. We kept meeting up, he’s giving me all this advice. Eventually he said helikes melikes me and somehow at this point I’ve caught feelings for a forty-five-year-old man. Mydadis fifty-four.’

Erin made a blow-out-cheeks puke face.

‘Is there nothing on your WhatsApp that could prove he flirted, or that you kept making plans?’

Erin took a tiny bird-sip of Coke and shook her head. ‘Pretty much nothing. He was very careful. He’d always ring me back. At the time I was all “oh wow he’s so keen”.’

Bel nodded.

‘You went to the Didsbury Airbnb three times total? All in April?’

Erin nodded, fiddling with her jacket sleeve.

‘Ian said that Glenn threatened you over nude pictures,’ Bel said. ‘But you’re not sure if he has any or if it’s a bluff?’

‘He does have them,’ Erin said, eyes suddenly shiny.

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