True Crime Story(34)

For all intents and purposes, I’d been disowned.

I freely admit that I shouldn’t have been dating at the time. I shouldn’t have been around people, full stop. They should have tied me to the mast of a ship and sent it out to sea for six months so I could scream it all off my chest. But I don’t accept that I was a bully. Not of anyone but myself. Who knows why we were arguing? If this was that time we went to Fifth Avenue, then it was probably because Zoe had invited Liu Wai on a night I’d thought was supposed to be about the two of us. In fact, yes, I think once I heard that her friend was coming, I insisted on bringing one along too.

JAI MAHMOOD:

Yeah, man. He was trying to make some kind of point and didn’t have any other friends to make it with, so he called me. I was pissed off with him for getting me in trouble with the cops, which I think indirectly led to everyone thinking I was a sex pest and having the shit kicked out of me, to getting my camera smashed. And he was pissed off with me because he thought I’d stolen his Rolex. Some days we were pals, but some days, it was like we didn’t know each other.

ANDREW FLOWERS:

The Rolex was an heirloom, something my mother had given to me when I turned sixteen. About as accurate as looking up at the sky and guessing the time, but I loved it. The fucking thing had been around the world on my grandfather’s wrist—there was probably sand from a thousand different shores clogging up the cogs. It didn’t work and was rapidly depreciating in value, so in that sense it stood in handsomely for my family. Then it really became one of them by vanishing from my life completely. I was fucked if I knew where it went missing from, my room or Zoe’s. I wasn’t blaming anyone at that stage, I just couldn’t help but wonder.

LIU WAI:

Andrew says him and Zoe fought because she invited me out? Interesting. I’m sure that’s how he’s spinning it now, but they definitely weren’t arguing about the guest list. Listen, Zoe shouting was one thing. What made it really unusual was that she kept repeating one word. As if to say, “I can’t believe this.” And what made it almost unique was that Andrew wasn’t saying anything in response. Like, he was clearly speechless, which was unheard of. The word Zoe kept repeating to him was, “Kim?” And I’m talking very much with the question mark attached…

ANDREW FLOWERS:

Well, fine. I suppose we’ll have to trust wonderful old Liu Wai’s memory, then, won’t we?

LIU WAI:

It’s no mystery. Listen, I owe no loyalty to Andrew fucking Flowers. My loyalty’s to Zoe, and I see no sense in protecting the feelings and reputations of people who might have had something to do with her disappearance. She was angry with him because he’d said Kim’s name while they were being intimate, like, while they were having sex. He realized immediately apparently, like, actually gasped. I think she was too shocked to even say anything at first, then she totally let him have it. This was about an hour before we were all due to hit the town together.

So…

Just something to keep in mind when he’s banging on about how boring and stupid and beneath him his girlfriend was. At least she always got his ridiculous name right.

ANDREW FLOWERS:

Fine. I don’t quite remember it that way, but fine.

KIMBERLY NOLAN:

What? No, Zoe never said anything like that to me. I remember that night for my own shitty reasons, though. She was acting really offhand, like she didn’t want me to be there. I couldn’t get her alone when we were in Fifth, she was always talking to Liu Wai in one corner or fighting with Andrew in another. Then I got separated from the others and had a bit of a crisis, ended up coming in really late. I always wondered why Zoe never checked on me the next day. She never asked me what happened or why I ghosted them. Until she went missing, that was the shittest night of my life, and I kind of had to deal with it on my own.

I guess it’s good to understand why, finally. Andrew never can say the right thing at the right time.

JAI MAHMOOD:

I was trashed that night. I was still a mess from the kicking I’d gotten in the car park, but really, I was starting to use the pills I was supposed to be selling for Vlad. So yeah, Andrew invited me out, but in a sense I wasn’t really there.

LIU WAI:

Andrew didn’t come back with us that night. Jai got into some fight on the dance floor, so they left together, and Kim just plain vanished on us. So it was just me and Zoe in the cab on our way back. She’d gone out in this bright-red jacket that had been stolen from our table when we went to the dance floor, but she was really cool about it, just shrugged and said she’d buy another. I tried talking to her, to broach the argument I’d overheard earlier, and that was when she told me what Andrew had done, like, saying Kim’s name while they were in bed. She seemed over it, said the “Andrew problem” would probably solve itself soon. That was music to my ears, and I asked if she had her eye on someone else. She just smiled and said, “All in good time.”

Then she changed the subject, suggested we take a shopping trip the next day. I told her there was no way I could afford to, but I’d go along for moral support. She said it was okay, it would be her treat. I kind of smiled and said, “Aw,” but I didn’t think much more about it until she got me up the next morning and told me to get ready. We took a cab to the Trafford Centre, where she bought me this gorgeous Ted Baker dress and then bought us both lunch as well. And that was the least of it. Like, there was steam coming off her credit card by the end of that day. I didn’t know much about her background, her family situation, but I came from a single-parent household and just thought, I guess this is how the other half live?