KIMBERLY NOLAN:
Dad launched himself up and nearly turned over the table. Coffee cups and cutlery went everywhere, everyone was staring at us. He gave me this look like he might spit in my face and walked out. Then me and the producer, whose name I forget, just sat there in silence. I hadn’t even been able to tell him about what had just happened, the prospectus and the man who’d hit me.
SARAH MANNING:
I’m small, five foot four, 120 pounds, and even I found moving inside that space like a living panic attack. It was cramped, pitch-black, unbelievably hot. A lot of pipes ran through it, some of them ice cold and some of them scalding to the touch. I had a flashlight, but I was keeping it low, trying to watch where my feet were going. I was acutely aware of being on the fifteenth floor of an old tower block. For all I knew, I might step on a hole in the ground and fall right the way down. So I’d walked sideways, carefully, for a few meters when I saw light at eye level.
It was a hole in the wall looking right through into Zoe’s room. I could see her door, her desk, her bed. Even the mirror in the wardrobe that she would have dressed in front of. That unsettled me but turned out to be the least of it.
Roughly six feet farther to the right, I came to an opening, a kind of cupboard-sized space of breathing room, which felt like a relief to me for a second. Then I moved the flashlight around and saw pictures pasted to the walls. Photographs of Zoe standing on the roof of the tower, at the edge of it, looking like she might jump. They looked candid, as though they’d been taken without her knowing. Then my foot brushed against something, and I realized there was a body at my feet. I saw a flash of blond hair, dropped the flashlight and heard it break, then I started banging around trying to get away. I couldn’t see anything or tell which direction I was going in, so I just pushed through and burned my arms on the pipes until I came back to the vent again. They pulled me out headfirst because I screamed at them to get me. It was only when we were all lying in a heap on the floor that I saw the blood on my hands. I didn’t know if it was mine or someone else’s. I didn’t know what the hell I’d just seen.
From: [email protected]
Sent: 2019-02-14 13:35
To: you
on Thu, Feb 14, 2019, Joseph Knox [email protected] wrote:
Hey—of course I’m still talking to you, don’t be silly. I’ve actually tried calling a couple of times to no answer.
I’ve just reached the discovery of the crawl space behind the wall, which I find really disturbing. What disturbs me more is the harassment that you’re going through, though. If I misspoke it’s only out of concern.
To be clear. I think this story AND your presentation of it is brilliant. It’s just that it seems to be getting so much bigger in scope than you originally intended. Just don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it. I know I’ve been busy with my own projects but if you wanted, I could help? I could edit or even come on board for example? Just a thought.
Something that’s leapt out at me with the mention of all these pipes is that Rob Nolan apparently worked as a PLUMBER at the time? I’m not pointing the finger but, given some of the things we know about him now, I just wonder if he’d be better OUT of your life?
And wtf is going on with Anderson? Why did he even agree to talk? Does he have any idea how he comes across on the page?
Jx
# # #
Hey, XXXXXXX happy valentines day. XXXX XXXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXX Thank you for your concern…
Can I ask what you mean by “come on board”？ Like, as a co-writer? I’m sure that comes from a good place but don’t you think it might undermine what I’m trying to do? Apologies if I’m getting the wrong end of the stick here.
I had NOT considered Rob’s work as a plumber in the context of the piping. I’ll look into it. You’re thinking he could have worked inside the building at some stage???
Like I said, the tower was fully finished in ’66 but only went up to 15 floors. Work started in ’74 to ADD four floors on top of that BUT because it hadn’t been part of the original plan, and because they didn’t pay the original architect to come back, there were some “quirks” of the construction. I haven’t been able to speak to anyone who worked on it directly—best case scenario they’d be in their 60s or 70s now, but I did speak to an architect who’s been involved with adding floors to other tower blocks. He said it could throw up all kinds of strange spaces if the work was sloppy.
Basically, if the girls had been in ANY flat other than 15C, Lois wouldn’t have been disturbed by those sounds （which may well have been someone moving through the crawl space）， and the intruder couldn’t have spied on Zoe or gained such easy access to her life.
Talk about the wrong place at the wrong time.
And I know, Anderson’s an eel. When I first approached him he was unbelievably patronizing and flat out refused to talk. Said he was still raw from being “doxxed” at the time （one of his students published his address on Facebook after it emerged he’d been questioned）。 So I got in touch with some of his colleagues, and from there his ex-wife, and SUDDENLY he was on the phone, very eager to meet and speak. “Don’t want you getting the wrong side of the story, now, do I, darrrrrrling?”
I want EVERY side of the story, treacle.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Ex
PS—I’m surprised you’re not more interested in Alex Wilson’s suicide? Nothing to suggest it’s connected but still a pretty big deal, right?
19.
“Blood Red”
As a disturbing discovery is made in the fifteenth floor apartment formerly shared by Kim, Zoe, Liu and Alex, Kim finds herself forced into a role that she has tried hard to avoid for her entire life.
LIU WAI:
Frankly, I thought that if I never saw Jai again, it would be too soon. He’d gotten his horrible little druggy claws into two of my friends by this point. I was meeting Fintan for the first time just the two of us, and Jai was skulking around the lobby of the tower, looking absolutely shady as fuck. Then he was all over me.