The Family Friend by C. MacDonald (love story novels in english txt) 📕

the middle of the table and sits down next to Erin. She’d been desperate not to tell him about the photos last night but lots of people they know would have seen them so she had no choice. He’s put on a veneer of concern, but she can tell, the shortness of his sentences, the way he can’t look at her for too long, that he’s angry she’s invited this into their lives. He smothers her hand with his.

‘What do you suggest we do?’ he asks Grace, tone businesslike.

‘We’ve informed the cyber-bullying team at the Met and I think you should report it to the police down here.’

‘You think they’ll do anything? I mean, you get burgled over here and the coppers hardly bat an eyelid.’ Erin gives Raf a look. He’s barely spoken to Grace since he got back from work but now he seems to want to take out his anger about the situation on her. Erin tried to get him to stay at the studio but he’s said he blames himself for not taking more of an interest in her Instagram so he insisted on meeting Grace. ‘I was googling it last night. There’s nothing threatening about the photos that would tip it off as stalking or harassment or whatever else this bastard is up to. So what can they do?’

‘Listen,’ Grace says, pushing the handle of her teaspoon on the table from six o’clock to nine. ‘You are right. The police probably won’t do much. There’s an assumption that things on social media are harmless, because mostly they are.’

‘Mostly –’

‘Which is why we’ve got our guy, Xavi, on it. We’ve booked him for the whole of this week to work on this. He’s the best in the business.’

‘What’s his background?’ Raf asks, too curt.

‘He used to work for the Spanish government. The point is, and it’s really important that both of you understand this, the point is that we’re taking this very, very seriously. There’s nothing more important to me than my client’s well-being.’ Raf releases Erin’s hand, shifting in his seat. ‘Erin, is there anyone you can think of that could have taken those pictures? Do you want to go through them, all of us, try to work out where you were for each shot, if there’s someone you saw at those places?’

‘Um.’ Raf and Grace both lean in. Bobby pulls away from Erin’s boob, pawing at her nipple, turning his nose up at it. This whole set-up is excruciating. Something from a nightmare. But she’s also breastfeeding. She shoves Bobby on but he must not be on right because it’s painful as he feeds.

Erin has done exactly what Grace’s suggesting. She’s visited the spots, tried to rack her brains about who was there, what the weather was like, where everyone else was. Lorna was at Colvin’s, the brasserie where the ‘mum-summit’ was, but so were about fifty other mums. Amanda’s identified the picture of her and Bobby as being at a cafe called Stornaway, but she’s been a few times, so she couldn’t narrow down when the photo was taken but there’s no reason Lorna couldn’t have been there. And she was nearby at the time the video was taken. But the day the picture from the church group was taken, Erin’s certain it was last week because of the jumper she was wearing, Lorna’s Instagram indicates she was in Maidstone all day visiting her sister so that seemed to discount her. Amanda of course was there at the time of the video, she could have been at the other locations, Erin didn’t know how long she’d been coffeeing with Sophie and her pals on the day of the ‘mum-summit’, and Erin had sat near the window so the picture could have been taken from outside, but firstly, she was with Erin when the troll posted these photos and the video from the mound that they managed to take down and, more pertinently why would Amanda post a picture of herself?

Every rational deduction has led to a dead end which points to it being someone she doesn’t know. The terrifying thing is that she has tens of thousands of followers, names on a screen that represent real people she knows nothing about, who see what she does every single day. Erin’s never posted her address or anything stupid like that, but it’s not a stretch to find out where she lives. She’s googled some of the landmarks that have appeared in her feed, the beacon of the lido, the alternate purple and yellow beach huts, and an image search brings up their town’s name immediately. Hang around for a day or two and someone would be sure to see her and Bobby in town.

‘I don’t know,’ she says, ‘I can’t think of anyone that would do something like this really.’ She glances out of the front window, as if the culprit will be standing out there taking pictures of them now. ‘Could it be some sort of incel guy? Anna Mai –’ Grace nods, acknowledging the name – ‘said that she’d been having lots of very aggressive sort of “get back in the kitchen” type stuff on her feed. Stuff about how a mother shouldn’t dress the way she does.’ Anna’s a gym-buff and hot with it and doesn’t baulk at showing off her body on ‘the Gram’. ‘She said there’d weirdly been a massive increase in that sort of online abuse in the last two or three months. Maybe someone like that?’

‘After your speech, you mean?’ Raf says. Grace narrows her eyes. ‘Calling out the patriarchy can be pretty inflammatory to certain stupid arseholes.’ Grace waves her head from side to side as if balancing out his suggestion like ingredients for a cake. ‘Have you had to deal with anything like this before?’ Raf asks.

‘Not exactly, not personal photos like this,’ Grace says, adjusting the starched cuff around her left wrist, keeping her eyes fixed on Raf so as not to be watching