Now, I can believe Professor Michael Anderson might lead a much more interesting life than us, that he has thousands of teenage girls batting their eyes at him all day, but who’d forget something like that?
PROFESSOR MICHAEL ANDERSON:
Well, naturally I remembered her during the period when Mr. Nolan was harassing me on the subject of her audition, she was fresh in my mind. Rejecting anyone for anything, particularly self-expression, is an extremely painful thing for me. I recall it all acutely for a few days, and then it gets filed away at the back of my mind just so I can stay sane. It has to. In Zoe’s case, I suppose she got a few more weeks’ headspace because of her father’s behavior, but I’m afraid that’s it. After that, I had a few hundred more students showing up on the doorstep who became my main focus. And I’d like to take this opportunity to stress that there has never, not once, been any suggestion of impropriety on my part across a teaching career of more than twenty years.
SARAH MANNING:
If Anderson had claimed not to know anything about the circumstances of the case, that might have been one thing, but he said he didn’t recognize Zoe, didn’t recollect her name. At the time, admittedly, we were in the eye of the storm, but I don’t think anyone on the team could quite believe he’d have missed all that media coverage. You’ve got to remember that Zoe’s name and face had been all over the local news for weeks by this point.
PROFESSOR MICHAEL ANDERSON:
Yes, well, I’d suggest I was reading a rather different caliber of newspaper from the rest of those involved. The FT doesn’t tend to lead with missing blonds. I myself find stories of that kind quite grisly, and I really was incredibly busy.
SARAH MANNING:
The computers, phones and email addresses that Anderson handed over for examination were all brand-new as well. Tech support at the RNCM told officers that Anderson’s desktop PC had been damaged in an accident, water in the circuitry, sometime during Christmas week—so almost immediately after Zoe’s disappearance—and disposed of the same day.
According to Anderson, this was around the same time that his personal email was hacked too. He said he’d been forced to delete the account and set up a fresh one. He purchased a brand-new laptop, a brand-new phone. As I recall, he told officers his old model had been handed over to shop staff for recycling, but the Vodafone store on Market Street had no record of it. His old laptop was apparently thrown out altogether. No backup.
PROFESSOR MICHAEL ANDERSON:
One never quite fathomed what the suggestion really was in the first place. That I failed to progress Zoe and she fell in love with me in the same instant? I was given to understand that a photograph of me was found somewhere in her possession, a picture from a freely available and mass-produced prospectus that everyone seems to agree she owned a copy of. So I really fail to see what more there is to it? If there’d been a picture of Beyoncé on her bedroom wall, would they have hauled her in as well?
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
When I got back to the coffee shop, I could hardly speak. Sarah saw something was wrong with me. She met me at the door and it all just flooded out.
SARAH MANNING:
Kim was wide-eyed, shaking, out of breath. I was trying to sit her down, but the words started tumbling out. She told me she’d remembered where she’d seen that picture, Professor Michael Anderson, and even found the prospectus it had been torn from, only to discover an intruder in the building who’d launched this terrifying physical assault. I called it in immediately. I asked if Kim would be okay there with her dad, then headed over to the tower myself to secure the scene. As I saw it, the fact that she’d been attacked for the prospectus suggested that the culprit might not have been so careful with fingerprints there as they had been on the roof.
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
We were double locking the door, in and out, without fail. We were scared after Zoe, it was all we could think of. So yes, I was sure. I double locked that door when I went out to meet my dad, and I double locked it behind me when I went back for the prospectus. I knew the man hadn’t followed me. He hadn’t picked the lock or kicked the door down. He was already inside the fucking flat when I got there. He had to have been.
SARAH MANNING:
Kim insisted the door had been locked, that her attacker had already been inside. She’d heard a thud from one of the empty rooms, and when myself and two responding officers accessed the premises, we saw definite signs of a disturbance. The wardrobe was open—the girls had been using the room for storage—and clothes were scattered everywhere. Then we saw the service hatch inside leading on to wiring and pipework. The vent covering the hatch was hanging off the wall. It seemed obvious to us that someone had used it to gain access to the room. That was a disturbing thought, given what we were dealing with. I was the smallest person there, so I volunteered to climb inside and see where it went.
CARYS PARRY:
I’d been trying to speak to the Nolans about Kimberly’s involvement in the reconstruction when she abruptly got up and ran out of the café. I asked Rob if we should take a break, but he insisted we continue, which we did in fits and starts. After about half an hour, Kimberly came back, clearly distraught about something, and spoke to DC Manning. Then she sat back down with us, white as a sheet. I asked if we should postpone our conversation, but she didn’t react. Rob insisted we carry on. I looked between them and said, “Listen, I’m not sure Kimberly playing Zoe is the best idea.”
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
At which point my attention snapped back to where I was and what I was doing. I’d been told that me playing Zoe was one of the BBC’s demands, that it was the only way they’d agree to the reconstruction. That was when I found out it was all bullshit. They thought it was as bad an idea as I did.
ROBERT NOLAN:
I never told Kim she had to do it. I did think she owed it to Zoe, to her twin sister, to try and find her, and I’m sure I said words to that effect, but I don’t recall saying it was one of the BBC’s conditions.
CARYS PARRY:
Mr. Nolan said something like, “If you couldn’t give two fucks about her, then don’t do it.” By this point, we’d interviewed all the key players, created a production schedule, cast the parts. We were all but ready to shoot. I’ve canceled whole productions on the day of filming when I’ve thought it could do more damage than good, though. I’d much rather our time and money went down the drain than did permanent harm to someone suffering the aftereffects of a traumatic event. So I suggested we just press pause on everything for a while.