That seemed to give them both something to think about because, look, I’m no saint, but I spend every waking minute trying to help other people. I asked who’d told them this, and they admitted it had been Marcus Lee from the Mail. I said, “Oh, right, that’ll be the same sleazebag who broke the story about Robert, then. I wonder why he’d want us all fighting each other?” Andrew demanded to see my phone, but I had to ask him which one. My mobile? My desk phone? My home phone? What? Kimberly found the number and read it out. So I got up and told them to follow me.
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
We went down the stairs into the main building, then into the warehouse, which was amazing. Washing machines, dishwashers, sofas, wardrobes, kitchen furnishings—everything you’d need to make a home, all of it stacked up as far as the eye could see. Fintan took us to a corner office, opened the door and held out his arm. And there was Jai sitting at the desk.
ANDREW FLOWERS:
I walked in there still steaming. Fintan wasn’t someone I’d ever really had dealings with back in the day, but he got under my skin like fucking scabies.
JAI MAHMOOD:
I said hi to them both, man, smiled at Kim. It was good to see her. Then Andrew said, “Oh, Jai. Why did you do it?” I said, “Why did I do what?”
FINTAN MURPHY:
Before everything got too far out of hand, I explained the situation as I understood it, that Andrew and Kim had both been set up outside Owens Park for a photo op. The tip to the newspaper had apparently come from the phone in our office. Of course, Andrew had to turn every dial up as high as it would go.
ANDREW FLOWERS:
I told Kim and Fintan that Jai had been into my place of work a week or so before asking me for money, that I’d knocked him back. It had happened on the same day that someone set us up with the press.
JAI MAHMOOD:
Fintan and Kim looked at me like, “Is this true?” And I said what Andrew hadn’t let me say before. That a homeless guy had walked through the door a couple of weeks back wearing his fucking granddad’s Rolex. I’d tried to get it back for him, but the guy knew what it was worth, and he wasn’t letting it go for less than a grand. If Flowers didn’t want it, that was fine by me, but I wasn’t looking to make money off him.
ANDREW FLOWERS:
I started to say, “Okay, so if you didn’t call in the tip, who did?” At which point we all turn to see the villain of the piece, Mr. Rob Nolan, walking through the door.
FINTAN MURPHY:
I was livid to see him there. Not only had he dropped me in the shit, but he’d run Zoe’s name through it too. More to the point, he hadn’t bothered to answer the hundred and one phone calls I’d tried to place to him the day those stories broke about him. I said, “You’ve got some nerve showing up here, Robert.” I’d never talked to him like that, but in that moment, I think I could have killed. He didn’t say anything, so I asked him, “What are you doing here?”
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
He stared at me, obviously drunk, and said, “I’m here to see my second-favorite daughter.” I hadn’t seen him since I left Manchester in 2012. I hadn’t talked to him much, but you’re not supposed to hear things like that from your own dad. It felt like being slapped. But the fucking thing is, right, I’d gotten stronger since then. He’d just crumpled in on himself.
ANDREW FLOWERS:
Time had taken a running jump at him. He looked and sounded twice his age, but I recognized his voice from the phone, the man impersonating a police officer. He’d been trying to truly wreck his one remaining daughter’s life. I thought, Fuck me. At least my father just pretends I don’t exist.
FINTAN MURPHY:
I apologized to Kimberly there and then. To Andrew as well. I told them that as far as I was concerned, Robert and I were nothing to do with each other anymore, I had no idea he was still coming and going from the premises.
ROBERT NOLAN:
All I saw was a room full of people who’d betrayed my daughter and betrayed me. I said I should burn the place down for all the good it had done.
FINTAN MURPHY:
He’s screaming, blind drunk, ranting and raving. He says, “For all the good this place has done, I should torch it.” For all the good it had done. Feeding hundreds of unfortunate people a week, improving the lives of thousands. It was nothing to him if he didn’t get to stand on stage taking credit for it. I said, “You’re right, Robert. Frankly, I’m not sure there even is a Nolan Foundation without someone from the Nolan family involved. Certainly not one I’d want to be a part of.”
ANDREW FLOWERS:
Rob said that if that was the way Fintan felt, then he accepted his resignation.
FINTAN MURPHY:
I told him that wasn’t what I was getting at. I asked Kimberly, right there and then, if she’d want to be involved with the foundation.
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
And I don’t know if it was the madness of that week or how impressed I was with the place. I don’t know if it was just to get back at my dad or what, but I accepted. Dad looked at us all, at me for a long time, then eventually just staggered out. I said, “Okay,” like, getting my breath back and stopping my hands from shaking. I looked at Jai and said, “So what’s this about Andrew’s watch?”
29.
“Bombshell”
JAI MAHMOOD:
Yeah, I told them what I knew about the watch, man. I said where I’d seen it, who had it and what he wanted for the thing.
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
All I wanted to know was where it had come from. Jai was adamant that this guy, this Vlad, hadn’t taken it from Owens Park. He said he wouldn’t even have gotten through the gate. That was interesting to me, because I wondered if he’d stolen it from the person who’d originally stolen it. Jai said we’d need cash to get it back, and I told him that was no problem. I had my Mail money.