And there he was, sitting on the sidelines, watching the boys go by. He didn’t see me until I sat down on the street next to him, then he laughed. This fifty-year-old ex-bare-knuckle-boxing, Russian, alcoholic shitkicker with a slit nose, just laughing, throwing his wasted arm around me. I said it was good to see him and we caught up a bit. He’d been in and out of prison, made a break for the big time in London and had both his legs broken in response. He’d lived hard and crapped out, found himself out in the cold, back on the streets in Manchester. I told him where I’d been, explained all the gaps in my teeth and my memory. Then when we ran out of things to say, I asked him, like, genuinely curious, “So come on, impale me with it, Vlad. Where’s a guy like you get an antique gold Rolex?”
27.
“Showdown City”
JAI MAHMOOD:
Look, man, it didn’t blow my brains out when I heard about Andrew and Kim. Anyone with a pulse would have picked up on the tension there. I was probably a bit surprised to see Andrew was still in Manchester, that he was looking almost human. All I had to go on was the picture they’d printed of him in the paper. He was wearing a dark polo shirt from his job, and the caption underneath said he worked in the Trafford Centre. I couldn’t tell which shop from his uniform, so I just went out there and walked around a bit. I don’t know if you’ve been, but the Trafford Centre’s basically laid out like a blind dictator’s mansion, so it took me a minute.
ANDREW FLOWERS:
Well, of course we were coming up to Christmas again, somehow we always were. And of all the discount electronics-goods stores in all the towns in all the world, he walked into mine. I was in work early, waiting to find out if I still had a job. My consultation meeting with my boss, Keith, was scheduled for that morning, showdown city, except he said he wasn’t quite ready for me yet. So I’d started the day as usual. Booting display devices, putting out the tills, recovering the shop floor. I wish I could say Jai was a welcome sight or even a sight for sore eyes, but I’m afraid on that day he was just a sight. I went over, nodded and smiled, of course. He smiled back, and I saw what a sad state his teeth were in. He looked like he had a lot more than just seven years on the clock.
And that was that.
Before either one of us could say anything, Keith was at my shoulder, looking like he’d just swallowed shit, saying he could see me now. I asked Jai if he could give me a minute and followed Keith into the back, where he began my appraisal before I could even close the door. I interrupted and asked, “Before I listen to all this, do I still have a job?” He smiled and said no. He told me my conduct outside the store had brought them into disrepute, my lifestyle was at odds with the “values” of PC World. He had clippings, examples, the anecdote about teens trying to search for porn in the shop the week before. Then he smirked, nodded at the shop floor and said, “Now you’re bringing in bad sorts too.” So I swept everything off this fucker’s desk and left. I never even sat down.
JAI MAHMOOD:
That’s how a newly sober man and a freshly fired one ended up in the pub before eleven in the morning. Andrew bought two pints, decked his in one, then pointed at mine and said, “You drinking that?”
ANDREW FLOWERS:
When we started exchanging stories about the last seven years, it turned out that neither one of us had exactly split the atom. I’d just lost my job more or less before his eyes, so I didn’t have much to shout about professionally. I still had most of my teeth, though, so it was one-nil there.
It was nice to see him.
It seemed in that moment like he’d swooped down out of the sky at my lowest point, potentially to pick me up. We were sitting in some awful chain pub listening to Christmas songs on a loop, always something I associate with Zoe. I felt like a lot of what had passed between us had washed under the bridge. It was just bittersweet that so much had washed away with it. We were both old men in our midtwenties, coming in joint-last position, just like always. And upon that realization, I think I went back to the bar.
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
I spent the weekend with Mum and got to my meeting with the police at Owens Park early. I didn’t have much else to do that day. It was the seventeenth, the seventh anniversary of Zoe’s disappearance, so I suppose I thought I should take a moment and pay my respects. I could see the tower from the street, but I knew it was empty. I’d heard it was scheduled to be demolished, which felt like the end of something. And I was nervous about talking to the police.
No one had ever asked me outright if it was Zoe in that video, but I knew I’d lied by omission, and I assumed that was illegal. The detective, James, hadn’t sounded happy on the phone. What worried me most was Owens Park, the main entrance, right on a busy road. I’d already had some odd looks, or at least I thought I had. My picture had been in a paper or two in the last few days, and of course the video was out there, so I didn’t like the idea of being out in public. But I knew they had to have found something to arrange our meeting there.
JAI MAHMOOD:
When Andrew came back from the bar, I wasn’t sure how long he’d stay upright, so I got right down to it, the reason I was there. I said, “That watch you had when we were living together, man, the Rolex…”
ANDREW FLOWERS:
I said, “Yeah, what about it?”
JAI MAHMOOD:
“Did you ever find out what happened with that? Where it went? Who had it and why?”
ANDREW FLOWERS:
I probably looked at him a little more closely, a little more darkly, then answered carefully. “No, and I assume it’s gone for good.”
JAI MAHMOOD:
I said, “What if I told you I knew where it was?” Andrew picked up his next pint and put a serious dent in it. Then he wiped his mouth and said, “It’s probably best left in the past.”
ANDREW FLOWERS:
Look, if he’d taken the damn thing, I was trying hard to let him off the hook.
JAI MAHMOOD:
This thing that had been like life or fucking death for him seven years ago suddenly wasn’t worth the time of day. He didn’t have any curiosity about it. I said, “Andrew, mate, I can get your granddad’s watch back. How can you not care?”