True Crime Story(74)
Ex
21.
“Dead End”
With the reconstruction looming and the investigation effectively stalled, Kim takes matters into her own hands with a reckless attempt to find out the truth.
CARYS PARRY:
Well, my day didn’t start with that panicked phone call but only because I’d been up since 4:00 a.m. I wouldn’t necessarily be on set for every shoot, but given that this story had originated with me and I’d made various assurances to the Nolan family, it had become my baby. So I was in the van and on my way to Fallowfield when Rob Nolan called saying that no one could find Kim.
ROBERT NOLAN:
Sal and me had spent the night before in Manchester. Plan was that Kim would meet us in the lobby of the Travelodge, and we’d get breakfast, have a coffee. Course, she never turned up. We couldn’t get her on the phone either.
SALLY NOLAN:
Well, I was worried, so I called Liu Wai, but she hadn’t seen her. She went to knock on the new flat Kim had been moved to, but she wasn’t in her room. Her new flatmates hardly knew her, they weren’t sure she’d even been back the night before.
CARYS PARRY:
I told Rob that the last thing I’d heard from Kim had been positive. She’d completed a wardrobe and makeup test the previous day and according to everyone involved, she’d been fine, really looked the part. Rob said, “What happens to the reconstruction if she doesn’t turn up?”
CHLOE MATTHEWS, Actor:
I’d only recently graduated from the drama department of the University of Manchester. I was three years older than Zoe, but we looked a lot like each other, and our first names rhymed. When the story was at its height and she was all over the news, I used to get quite a lot of sideways looks. The police even turned up at the coffee shop where I was working once, because someone thought I was Zoe.
Carys had already explained the situation when we first spoke about the role. That I was sort of there to be on hand in case Kim couldn’t make it, which I totally understood. So I was going to be on set anyway, but Carys called that morning saying it was quite likely I’d need to step in and play the role.8
SALLY NOLAN:
As soon as they had the replacement, Rob was right as rain. I just stared at him until he saw me, until he noticed. I said, “Don’t you think we should cancel all this? Concern ourselves with finding our daughter?” He said, “I am trying to find our daughter.” It turned into a flaming row at the taxi rank on Oxford Road.
ROBERT NOLAN:
My feeling, which turned out to be correct by the way, was that Kim had lost her nerve and let us down. I knew she wasn’t in any kind of trouble. She’s just someone who falls at the final hurdle. She’s got a lot of good qualities, but she doesn’t see things through. She always thought Zoe got too much attention and at certain points, she’d try and take it back, usually in a childish way. I mean, getting herself arrested on the night Zoe went missing, watching a band the same week her sister’s face was on the front page of every paper. She didn’t have Zoe’s gifts, so she made these maddening bids for attention.
SARAH MANNING:
It had always been my main contention that the reconstruction was too much for Kim, so I was incredibly concerned. My duties with the family prevented me from joining the search myself, but word went out immediately, all points.
CARYS PARRY:
I was sympathetic, but running a production like that doesn’t leave much time to look over your shoulder. We were filming Jai’s discovery of Zoe’s stolen clothes, the revelation of a leaked intimate video, Zoe’s fight with her boyfriend and her walk up to the roof, as well as the fire-alarm evacuation of the tower. All that plus dozens of extras, plus Robert and Sally Nolan on set. A full day.
CHLOE MATTHEWS:
I thought the shoot went well. It’s a strange kind of set to be on. To a lot of people, it’s just a job, but for others, it’s obviously incredibly painful. You have to stay mindful of that. The way they stage reconstructions is to have the events narrated in post, so you don’t really have speaking lines. I met Mr. Nolan, Zoe’s dad. He came over to say how much I reminded him of Zoe, tears in his eyes and everything. I took it as a huge compliment at the time.
SALLY NOLAN:
Kim’s phone was in her bedroom, so there was no point calling it, but I wasn’t about to stand around eating free sandwiches while she was still out there somewhere. I left and left Rob to it.
ROBERT NOLAN:
I was embarrassed. All these people are coming together to help find Zoe, and her own sister, her own mother, can’t make the effort? I’m not saying it was easy for me either. I just wasn’t going to let it derail what could be a really positive day. Kim never did explain herself. We were all supposed to just forget about it.
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
Where was I that day? Where else would I have been? I went to Michael Anderson’s house. I’d seen Jai up on the roof of the tower the night before, and I was wearing what they were putting me in for the reconstruction. There’d been a makeup test, and he thought for a second I was my sister. I could see he wanted to tell me something, but I interrupted him. I wanted to know what they’d been talking about, he and Zoe, all those times they’d met up there. So he sat on the ledge next to me and said Zoe had been scared of something.
JAI MAHMOOD:
Zoe was scared she was a failure, in music and in life, and that came up a lot when we’d talk, but her biggest fear as far as I could tell was that she was losing Kim. She saw Kim as this person she couldn’t be, someone who never followed the herd but blazed her own trail, whatever anyone else said about it. She said Kim had this thing that she’d always lacked in life, this bravery to just be herself. Kim didn’t say anything to that. It was like this blindingly obvious thing about their relationship had never occurred to her.