True Crime Story(35)
SAM LIMMOND, Ex-boyfriend of Alex Wilson:
Yeah, I was basically seeing Alex from the first week of the first term. We weren’t always exclusive, but it was a real relationship—at least it was to me. I only met Zoe once, because we tended to crash at my place. Al said there was always drama at hers, and the one time I stayed over, that was true. We were sitting on the sofa talking when Zoe and their other flatmate—Liu—came in with all these shopping bags. I think we found it funny. Not in a mean way, but Alex and me were Nine Inch Nails kinds of kids. Tattoos and straight vodka, and suddenly this it-girl satire started playing out in front of our eyes. Zoe disappeared while Liu made small talk, and then she came back with all these clothes that she laid out at Alex’s feet, telling her that they were hers if she wanted them. Al gently pointed out that they had quite different styles, but Zoe kept trying until Al had to quite forcefully say no, she didn’t want them. Then, as if to make some kind of point, Zoe turned to Liu and said, “Well, I want you to have my laptop.”
LIU WAI:
I had this busted-up old MacBook you could have heated an entire house with, I was forever cursing its existence. Zoe said she wanted me to have hers. I was like, “No, really, that’s too much,” but she insisted. She said after that note she’d found, it just didn’t feel the same, that I’d be doing her a massive favor.
SAM LIMMOND:
When Zoe went into her room to get it, Alex leaned in and kind of quietly told Liu she should politely decline. Liu just shrugged and said we’d just watched her try to politely decline. Al insisted that Liu actually decline. Liu started to say maybe this wasn’t any of our business, but we were trying to point out, like, “Doesn’t Zoe seem strange to you?” It just seemed so obvious to us she was going through some kind of manic episode. We’d both already been through one of those together, Alex and me, and there were a few more in our future. We knew the signs, and so, I’m sure, did Liu. It felt like she was taking advantage. When Zoe came back, Liu took that laptop without a fight.
So yeah, when Zoe went missing, it didn’t come as a huge shock. I thought it was sad but that she’d done something to herself. And there was the other side of things as well. Alex told me this story after, the real reason she’d tried to get Liu Wai to turn down that laptop. Al could be really abrupt. Indecisive for a long time and then very suddenly decisive, she did a lot of turning on her heel. So she must have announced she was leaving their flat for the day with absolute certainty, then an hour later had a typical change of heart and turned around. Only, when she got back there, she walked in on something that made her quite uncomfortable. She got inside, shouted hello, and went down the corridor toward the kitchen. When she got there, she said she found Andrew and Zoe pulling their clothes back on, both breathless, trying to style it out.
Their business, right?
Except when they disappeared into a bedroom, Al said she saw Zoe’s laptop, set up on the bookcase facing the sofa. It was filming. No one said or explained anything, but she said Zoe was acting weird. She said she looked pale and sick, like she was scared of something. Alex basically came away thinking they’d been making a sex tape, but mainly that Zoe was frightened of Andrew. You know, he did not want her to talk about whatever it was they’d been doing.
ANDREW FLOWERS:
I’m sorry, what is it that you’re asking me? Did I say the wrong name once while I was sleeping with my girlfriend? Did I fuck once in front of a camera? Did I upset Zoe from time to time? Or are you asking me something else? Are you, perhaps, asking if I had something to do with her disappearance?
SAM LIMMOND:
Anyway, Alex knew there could be footage on that laptop. Footage Zoe might not want out there in the world. And she was concerned because Zoe had just given it to Liu Wai, who could be like the town gossip.
LIU WAI:
That night at Fifth seemed like a turning point in some senses, you know? Obviously Andrew and Zoe had their bust-up over Kim, Zoe told me she was moving on from Andrew, and Kim had some kind of ordeal that put her in a funk for a few days. Then she suddenly changed her image and went goth. And I mean, overnight. She originally had this beautiful blond hair just like Zoe. Then, coming up to Christmas, she got thinner and thinner, and suddenly the hair was just gone, down into this military brush cut or something. She dyed what was left of it black and started dressing really punk and stuff. Andrew called her “The Girl without the Dragon Tattoo,” which I had to admit was quite funny.
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
I couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to me before. There’d always been differences in style and hair between Zoe and me. I didn’t think we looked that much alike, but people around campus always confused us or hinted I was pulling off the look less well. I’d never felt comfortable in my own skin. But when I shaved my hair off, I felt like I was onto something, something like the real me.
LIU WAI:
Well, I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. The other is that her sister was so beautiful, so pure. When Kim changed her image, it was like an act of self-harm? Like she was refuting everything that Zoe was, like she was criticizing it. And then the next thing that happened was that Zoe went missing without a trace, and no one ever saw her again. I’ll leave your readers to draw their own conclusions from that.
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4 This interview was transcribed by Evelyn in early 2018, before Kimberly had publicly told the story of her abduction from outside Fifth Avenue nightclub.—JK