Page 78 of Cover Story

It was quite something for Glenn Bailey to take second place in the award for ‘man she least wanted to come face-to-face with at this event’, yet she turned round, and there was the first, smirking at her.

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No one bothered to talk to Connor once the table formations dissolved, despite a few inquisitive glances, and he was fine with that. Being unknown came with freedoms, the luxury of lurking.

He liked to think he was a good people-watcher.

His friend Paige once said to him: ‘For a beautiful person you’re unusually good at making yourself invisible, and you know why?’

‘No, but I’m happy with the descriptor,’ Connor said. Paige was gay and often cheerfully told Connor her opinions about him, as non-stakeholder.

‘Because making yourself invisible is to do with lack of ego and curiosity, and not looks. It’s a state of mind.’

Across the room, Connor observed a man in his mid-forties or so, handsome in a ‘trendy geography teacher’ or ‘noir author’ way: black-rimmed glasses, neat features and auburn hair, with goatee beard. What Connor principally picked up on was that this person was staring intensely at Bel. At first Connor thought he might be imagining it, too sensitised to scrutiny because of his and Bel’s shadow life. They had been warned of a network of spies.

Bel was in animated conversation with a woman and two men, telling a story that required her to swing her Prosecco flute around and make emphatic facial expressions. They were beguiled, the Bel Macauley Effect in real time.

She’d done one of her sartorial caterpillar-to-butterfly transformations again. Connor had noticed men noticing her, and Bel not noticing at all. This was something different, however.

Every time Bel moved, this man’s line of sight moved with her. The heaviness of his gaze as he stared at her was like a dog in undergrowth tracking a squirrel.

Eventually the man saw his opportunity and approached her. Connor watched their exchanging opening words in rapt fascination. This man’s manner: smug, confidential, excited. Bel’s demeanour: like someone had thrown a drink in her face.

Her response to him decisively confirmed that Something Was Up. Connor had never seen her like this: her whole posture, completely altered. He was the sole audience for this little tableau, a particular vignette.

Wait! Was thisthe stalker?From York? The one she’d used as biography and obviously expected Connor to treat as a fiction, except he turned up at their office? Also, wasn’t he from her last paper, so it’d fit with him being at these awards? Oh … Connor was already intrigued and now it was like he’d leaned down and found the key jigsaw puzzle piece on the floor.

Bel looked so hunted in this interaction that it activated a protective instinct. The man put his hand on Bel’s upper arm and she flinched. Connor was baffled, too. Macauley was one of the most forthright people he’d ever met. She had no difficulty standing up for herself. Not in any abrasive way– butshe wasn’t a wilting damsel needing rescue, a rare hothouse flower. If someone needed telling to go bum themselves into the middle of next week, she’d gaily do it.

Why did this individual look as if he intimidated her so much? What did he have on her? Had Bel done something so terrible this guy could hold her to ransom? Was the ransom … sexual? One thing Connor was certain of, there’d been some sort of personal entanglement.

He watched as a nervy-looking Bel said something to goatee guy with a bright, fake smile and walked away.

Connor saw Bel move onwards through the rabble decisively. Towards the far end … the exit? She was leaving? Oh, he didn’t like this at all. Not only was the party much less interesting without her, this man being able to chase her out felt all wrong.

It got worse: after glowering at her departure, the man swigged the rest of his drink, set it down and moved with purpose in the direction she’d gone.

He was following her? Was this an agreed pursuit, between two people playing games? You go first, I’ll wait a minute? He felt reasonably sure it wasn’t. On impulse, Connor wove his way through the crowds and followed both of them.

It took him a couple of minutes outside the Town Hall to spot them, a dozen paces away: the distance from the building was exactly as it would be if Bel was fleeing into the night, and goatee guy had intercepted her.

Connor could overhear what he was saying as he drew nearer. Bel’s arms were folded, her expression taut.

‘… Isabel, all I’m asking is you give me an hour of your time. I really don’t think that’s much to ask … Why are you so obstinate about this? What are you scared of?’

Connor took a deep breath. It was never wise to interfere when you didn’t know what you were interfering with, he thought, but here went nothing.

‘Excuse me?’ Connor said, interrupting, startling them both. ‘Sorry to cut in– Bel, there’s someone inside I’d like to introduce you to?’

‘We’re busy,’ the goatee man snapped.

‘I wasn’t talking to you,’ Connor said. He addressed Bel again: ‘All right if I borrow you?’

It was an Ask For Amy: if she wanted this other conversation, it was well within her capabilities to tactfully dismiss Connor.

‘Sure,’ she said, politely obedient, and Connor relaxed a few degrees that he might’ve judged this right.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ the man said, and Connor was surprised at talk this aggressive from someone who looked like he taught Year 7s about oxbow lakes.

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