True Crime Story(57)

One final rogue thought re: phone calls. Have you given your home number to any of the people you’ve been interviewing? Because if there’s any element of danger here you should consider stopping altogether. The story’s not worth that.

Jx

# # #

Hey JK. SO. The cash is actually STILL in that account. I think you need to be missing seven years for the high court to rule death in settlement of an estate, so it’s happening now. I’d imagine it’ll go to Zoe’s family.

You don’t think it could be a motive to get rid of her? Guess it would be playing a very long game if so…

Scan of rooftop picture from Sarah Manning here:



I wasn’t going to say this, but I think I actually will: What do you mean that I should “consider stopping”? Stop writing the book? And are you saying the story’s not worth it because it’s not interesting, or because I’m not presenting it in the way you would? Because it’s worth it to me and that should be enough.

And on those phone calls, after the 50th one (only slight exaggeration), I finally fucking googled my number. I found it’s been listed on a personal ads site saying I can “suck the freckles off a man’s dick.”

Obv unpleasant to think about who might have put it there and why, but there’s no chance I’m stopping now, whatever you might think about my story. XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXXX XXXXX XXXXXXX

One thing I’ve been meaning to ask, Joe—you haven’t been sharing this with anyone, have you?

Ex(hausted)





15.


“Heart Attack”

With new information finally emerging about Zoe’s secret life, her family and friends are forced to confront some uncomfortable facts.

ROBERT NOLAN:

We spent Christmas Day in the tower. That’s where the police came in with a picture, saying, “Can you identify this man?”

ANDREW FLOWERS:

I’d gone from estrangement from my father to derangement of my father, to probable disinheritance. The press conference had been one thing, but then there was the story in the Mail showing myself, Jai and Kim all engaged in the apparent act of buying narcotics. They implied some strange bond between us, a sex triangle that saw us harboring Jai and plotting something rather than just trying to take him in to talk to the police. Owens Park had been almost entirely cleared out for Christmas, it was just losers like us with nowhere to go. I’m sure I speak for everyone involved when I say that time of year’s really lost its luster for me. Someone should write a Christmas song about what a lot of shit it can be—they’d be set for life. By this point, Owens Park was this cavernous, deserted student village that handily contained every known suspect in a young woman’s disappearance. So after the drug pictures, there was this constant snarling wolf pack of photographers camping out at the gate, waiting for anyone to go in or out.

I don’t know why the Nolans didn’t get a hotel—money I suppose—but yes, it was certainly uncomfortable. Jai and I were avoiding the rest of them—they suspected us of everything you can think of—and we were trying to avoid each other for the same reason. There was the bad smell in the air from my trying to fight him at the party, accusing him of taking my Rolex, and at the same time, he was trying to go straight or clean or whatever they call it. I was still hiding my face while the scratches healed, still miffed that I’d paid off Jai’s drug debts without so much as a thank you, so the atmosphere was certainly fraught. More so when the police arrived on Christmas Eve to take him back in for questioning.

SARAH MANNING:

I was wary of the photograph because it felt too good to be true. After spending time with the family, with Rob especially, I knew how it might get jumped on and interpreted as the answer to all our problems. And I’ll admit I was concerned about how fast it might find its way into the press.

Evidence can’t exist in a vacuum. You’re talking about inanimate objects that become supercharged because of the context surrounding them—so much so that they might even change meaning on you sometimes. Yes, we had this picture of an unknown man found among the possessions of a missing woman. But it was also a glossy photograph, ripped out from a magazine or some kind of publication, and it had been found in what amounted to a communal space. We only had Jai’s word for it that Zoe even used that tin. The entrance to the tower’s roof was a service door, residents weren’t supposed to go up there, but the lock was broken and they obviously did. Zoe and Jai went out there often enough, so why not others?

In fact, a few people did come forward saying they’d been on the roof themselves before Zoe’s disappearance, smoking cigarettes or getting the view. Some of them had even seen her up there. I just urged the team to find out everything they could before alerting the family and giving them false hope, especially at Christmas. I’d been on the scene, and I’d spent a lot of time out at the tower by this point. I knew someone could have planted it there if they really wanted to.

JAI MAHMOOD:

They sat me down and started showing me picture after picture but kept circling back to one of them again and again. Some city boy I’d never seen before, which is what I told them. They kept asking me about the roof, about me and Zoe, our arrangement, the tin. Did she keep anything else in there except for the pills? I said, “Not as far as I know.” Then they told me that this picture had been found inside the tin and my brain started to bake, man.