KIMBERLY NOLAN:
There was a communication breakdown between me and Dad. Over the weekend, once he’d dealt with my arrest and my shock, he had to find out all these things that Zoe hadn’t wanted him to, and he blamed me. Whenever he called us after we moved out, I’d say we were both fine, doing well, and Dad actually brought all that up, said I’d been lying to him, like I was supposed to have been spying on Zoe all that time. I was starting to see…well, I was starting to realize that she’d needed to get away from him as much as I had.
ROBERT NOLAN:
Listen, I’m hearing stories about my daughter’s clothes going missing, about boys on campus turning it into a bloody joke, then this other lad throwing her knickers around at a party like confetti. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe my ears. So I didn’t shout at Kim—I’m sure she’ll say I brought the house down—but I was just trying to understand what she’d been thinking. I said, “For Christ’s sake, you were here to look after her.”
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
Which was the big red button in my brain that said, “Do Not Push.” I just exploded, and everything, all of it, came out. How I’d never been good enough, how he’d always preferred Zoe, how I knew for a fact he’d rather I’d gone missing than her.
SALLY NOLAN:
When Rob didn’t say anything to that, when he just sat down and started reading through the papers, his precious coverage, I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe what was happening to us. I remember holding both their hands, trying to join them together and show them we were all connected, we were all we had, but it didn’t work. I don’t think they ever touched each other or really talked again.
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
I was just trying to make a point to him and explain it as calmly as I could. In my mind, it wasn’t something to shout about or scream about. In my mind, it was the most reasonable thing in the world. You know, “I wasn’t put on this planet to follow my fucking sister around. I was supposed to live. I was supposed to have my own life.” He didn’t even listen. He couldn’t hear me over himself.
ROBERT NOLAN:
The main thing that shocked me was that “essay” on Zoe’s computer. It froze my blood. They should have been on to the police the second they first saw it. They would have been if I’d known. I was worried about Jai—I thought he sounded sick in the head, a real pervert—but the essay was different.
See, that was written by a different kind of person, someone intelligent, someone who had access to Zoe’s room and her life. It was written by someone who knew her. The police didn’t seem to be taking it seriously. They weren’t seeing it for what it was—to me, that essay was as good as a ransom note—and while the wider world didn’t know about it, there was no one who could really hold them to account.
ANDREW FLOWERS:
When the essay leaked to the newspapers a couple of days after the appeal, my core really went into meltdown. The articles were presented in such a way, with my picture placed so prominently, that anyone would think I’d written the fucking thing. If you google me now, it’s still the first result that comes up. My face next to that psycho message, usually accompanied by the pullout quote about wanting to walk around in her skin, to see out through her skull.
From: [email protected]
Sent: 2019-02-07 11:55
To: you
on Thu, Feb 07, 2019, Joseph Knox [email protected] wrote:
Hey E, so I’ve just finished ch.13. Am I right in thinking Rob Nolan leaked the essay from Zoe’s laptop to the press?! Shocking if true. Surely the police wanted that under wraps to weed out any fantasists?
Jx
# # #
Hey, yes, you’re reading it right. Rob was always playing by his own rules and his behavior only really got worse. Leaks were a big problem, although in fairness so was the poor police response.
Bluntly, it seems like it was LOW priority for GMP. I’ve found it impossible to get anyone other than Sarah on the record for two reasons: one, yes, the case is nominally still open, but two: there simply weren’t that many people involved. Reading between the lines, I think senior officers just wrote her off as some runaway early on, then when they realized it was worse than that it was too late.
Anyway, Rob made a lot of bad calls—I can’t say I particularly enjoy talking to him.
And speaking of bad calls, I know I’ve had some weird ones in the last few days but my landline’s been burning up lately. My agent sometimes gets me there and she’s reading the early chapters right now so I have to keep answering. Long story short, I’m picking up to man after man trying to arrange meetings with me. Once I start asking questions they tend to hang up, but one got as far as asking how much I charge for extras. I was like, “Extra what buddy?” He said watersports（！） piss play（！！） scat（！！！） I told him it was probably more than he could afford and hung up, but the phone keeps on ringing.
E（urgh）x
PS. At least now I’ve got something to fall back on if the book gets rejected…
PPS. XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXX
eX
14.
“Unnamed Sources”
With a burgeoning information problem for the authorities and the press getting closer to some members of the Nolan family than others, a missing person finally resurfaces with revelations about Zoe’s personal life.
SARAH MANNING:
The disarray of that press conference set the tone all wrong. The conclusions we allowed people to draw from it hindered our investigation from the off. It was like a starter’s pistol for every exploitative reporter, every cowboy with a pet theory, every dirty cop with a story to tell. Basically anyone and everyone with a mortgage to pay.
ANDREW FLOWERS:
They say everyone gets their fifteen minutes of fame. Mine were merciless. There had been the pictures, the insinuations made about me, but then came the unnamed sources. Someone from the police putting it out there that I had a criminal record for theft, even though I was a “rich kid” and could apparently have anything I wanted. I know for a fact that one of my arresting officers from Surrey sold a story anonymously, one suggesting that I referred to the police as “pot bellies.” I know it had to be him because I’d shouted words to that effect while he was handcuffing me six months before. A man spat at me in the street one day, women refused to serve me in shops. When I tried to walk away, they shouted stuff like, “Where’s Zoe Nolan?”