Girl with cover could be a leech (7)
I believe the answer is:
annelid
'a leech' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both animals as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'girl with cover' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'girl' could be 'anne' (girl's name) and 'anne' is found in the answer.
'cover' could be 'lid' (lid is a kind of cover) and 'lid' is present in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'could be' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for annelid that I've seen before include "Lindane (anag.); a kind of worm" , "Class of worms" , "leech, perhaps" , "Earthworm or leech" , "leech, for example" .)