True Crime Story(49)
ANDREW FLOWERS:
I’d called my father, but he didn’t have time to talk. He just put me on to Lipson, the family lawyer. So when I left that station and walked into Rob Nolan, I suppose I was quite emotional, I suppose I was quite stupid. I just saw a dad taking charge, doing everything he could for his child. When he put his hand out for me to shake, I took it. Looking back, I should have told him to stick it up his arse.
* * *
6 All interviews with Dr. Hannah Docherty were conducted by Joseph Knox and added to Evelyn’s text in 2019.
13.
“Under Pressure”
On the third day of the investigation into Zoe’s disappearance, the press conference organized by her father forces almost everyone into the spotlight, with disastrous results.
ROBERT NOLAN:
You want to go in and start shouting. That’s your first instinct. Fight the universe. Then you think you should talk to whoever it is that’s done it, make a deal and reason with them. Say you don’t have to involve the police at all, that you can settle it quietly. They just need to let your kid go and all’s right with the world.
SARAH MANNING:
We briefed the Nolan family not to make an emotional or aggressive appeal. Everything we know about these situations tells us not to point the finger, not to make any inflammatory or accusatory statements. We asked them to make it clear how much they loved their daughter, how painful it was to be apart from Zoe, perhaps even articulate the emotional weight of not knowing. The aim of the game is to humanize the missing person and humanize your family. We know that an individual who might take a young woman is likely someone who’s become temporarily or permanently empathically disengaged, someone who’s lost all sympathy. We’re trying to communicate directly with them, to say, “This is a person. Be careful.” That’s a complex enough message without playing games.
ROBERT NOLAN:
It goes against what you’re thinking and feeling in the moment, because you know someone’s done something. You know your kid hasn’t just wandered off. All parents do in that situation. They can tell when something’s wrong, and my heart goes out to them. It’s the worst club in the world you can be a member of. So I got through it by telling myself it was a performance. I just learned my lines and recited them, but I made damn sure I was playing all sides.
ANDREW FLOWERS:
On the morning of the appeal and with some sleep in me, I happened to look at the picture the police had taken of my face. Constable Manning had left me a copy, and I started to see what she was saying. I tried to broach the subject with Rob Nolan, to suggest it might be a distraction having me up there, looking like something the cat had been at.
ROBERT NOLAN:
I said, “You’ve got to be up there. If Zoe’s watching and she’s upset about this fight, it’s important she sees you want her back, that she isn’t in trouble.”
ANDREW FLOWERS:
When I sort of started to say I didn’t think she’d feel particularly bad about the fight Rob just interrupted, got loud, hammered me with questions he already knew the answers to. If all else failed he’d lean on his age, his supposed life experience. A few times he even shouted me down. He reminded me of my own father in that respect. He expected to be listened to, his instructions followed. He told me it wasn’t too much to ask. And besides, he said the police were requesting that I go up there now, he said they wanted me to appeal for Jai to come forward.
SARAH MANNING:
No one ever told Rob Nolan that Andrew’s presence was required for Jai to come forward. Quite the opposite.
SALLY NOLAN:
Well, Andrew was reluctant, we could all see that, so Rob said, “Don’t you worry. If anyone says anything, I’ll make it crystal clear those scratches are nothing to do with this. We think of you as part of the family—you’re doing a brave thing. And you’re doing it because my Zoe loved you and you loved her.”
ANDREW FLOWERS:
It didn’t seem like the time to clarify that. “Well, actually, I thought she was all right…”
ROBERT NOLAN:
If Sally tells you that’s what I said, then we have to agree to disagree. That day, that week and everything around it was madness, but I don’t think I made any promises like that to Andrew. If it’s not clear by now, I’ll spell it out. I’m what they call a man of the old school—I say what I mean and I mean what I say.
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
The press conference was first thing Monday morning, so December 19. It was the third day Zoe had been missing, and you couldn’t help but wonder where she was, what she was going through. None of us had really stopped or slept or eaten in that time. We were all hollowed out and jumpy, not even really speaking, because everything—everything—turned into an argument. We were all living on top of each other in Owens Park, and every time the phone rang or someone walked into a room, we all thought they’d found her. Sometimes you’d think it was bad news and sometimes you’d think it was good, but it didn’t seem possible that it would be nothing. It didn’t seem possible that there could be no news at all. But that’s what it was, every single time.
LIU WAI:
So it’s this exhausting roller coaster of constant ups and downs and disappointments, even when nothing’s happening. And of course for the parents—I mean, I’m sure they couldn’t help but wonder and worry about where she was. I’m saying this to kind of explain why they looked like a pretty ragtag bunch when it came to the appeal. Mrs. Nolan had kind of aged with worry, she was just staring off into the distance like a fisherman’s wife. Mr. Nolan, Rob, looked like he was trying not to shout and scream, and his hair was all crazy and all over the place. Then you’ve got an extremely pale, thin and temporarily de-gothed Kim, but still with her black brush cut. And bringing up the rear you had Andrew, looking like the world’s least successful rapist, claw marks all down his face.