KIMBERLY NOLAN:
November was a rough time for me, I had my own stuff going on. Yes, I was upset about Zoe and Andrew, yes, I was stressed out by someone stalking my sister. But there was more. There was a night out I’m not really ready to talk about, but just believe me when I say it was bad. After it, I got panic attacks every time I turned the light off. I guess being drunk just seemed like the simplest way around some shitty nights and some shitty feelings. I’m sorry if that made Liu Wai uncomfortable.4
FINTAN MURPHY:
Zoe met me for a coffee and turned up with this Casio keyboard under her arm. She told me she was worried about Kimberly. Not only the drinking in isolation but everything that came with it. She’d started rolling in at all hours, sometimes in the company of strange men. Zoe said they didn’t know how to speak with one another anymore, which just seemed bizarre for twin sisters.
And one other thing I should mention…
Once we’d finished talking it through, she tried to give me this keyboard that she’d turned up with. I must have said to her in passing that I was dying to have something I could play in my room, and she knew I wasn’t worth a bean, so she wanted me to take it. I said I couldn’t accept, but she insisted. She said she saw Kimberly’s life of cheap thrills and no love, and she was afraid of that happening to her. I said, “Oh, Zoe, you don’t have to buy my friendship, not ever.” She became emotional—probably we both did—and in the end, I think I agreed to take it on loan. I said I’d give it back to her once I’d saved up for my own.
Of course, I’ve never had that chance.
ANDREW FLOWERS:
Did Kim have a drinking problem? I think that’s what most people go to university for in the first place, isn’t it? I thought that stuff was always exaggerated by people afterward, but maybe, sure, who knows? From what I saw, she always spilled more than she actually drank. She certainly wasn’t the sloppy, loud, messy wreck that the press made her out to be. She was sort of insular, she had that unfortunate thing of appearing more drunk than she was. She’d take a sip of something and her whole body slurred afterward. I found it quite charming.
LIU WAI:
I remember one time we were going out to this nightclub, Fifth Avenue. It was a Tuesday, student night, maybe six or seven o’clock, and I think we were all just in our own rooms getting ready. Then a full-blown domestic kicks off. I mean, being next door, I couldn’t help but overhear that Andrew and Zoe were having this apocalyptic fight.
On one level, it was quite normal? It was the kind of thing Andrew would initiate quite often. He sort of seethed and regenerated, and then once his rage reached full capacity, it just got unloaded on whoever or whatever happened to be in front of him at the time. Unfortunately, that was usually Zoe. Like, I thought he could be a real bully? Laughing if she didn’t know where a certain country was or mispronounced a word. What was strange about this occasion was that she was the one shouting. I don’t think I even knew she could shout.
ANDREW FLOWERS:
Oh, naturally Liu Wai couldn’t help but overhear. Conversations taking place in the next room are always so difficult to ignore when you’ve got your head pressed against the sodding wall listening to them. Look, you know what I was going through at the time. My mum did herself in, my dad was doing my ex, and I almost did time for nicking his car.
For all intents and purposes, I’d been disowned.
I freely admit that I shouldn’t have been dating at the time. I shouldn’t have been around people, full stop. They should have tied me to the mast of a ship and sent it out to sea for six months so I could scream it all off my chest. But I don’t accept that I was a bully. Not of anyone but myself. Who knows why we were arguing? If this was that time we went to Fifth Avenue, then it was probably because Zoe had invited Liu Wai on a night I’d thought was supposed to be about the two of us. In fact, yes, I think once I heard that her friend was coming, I insisted on bringing one along too.
JAI MAHMOOD:
Yeah, man. He was trying to make some kind of point and didn’t have any other friends to make it with, so he called me. I was pissed off with him for getting me in trouble with the cops, which I think indirectly led to everyone thinking I was a sex pest and having the shit kicked out of me, to getting my camera smashed. And he was pissed off with me because he thought I’d stolen his Rolex. Some days we were pals, but some days, it was like we didn’t know each other.
ANDREW FLOWERS:
The Rolex was an heirloom, something my mother had given to me when I turned sixteen. About as accurate as looking up at the sky and guessing the time, but I loved it. The fucking thing had been around the world on my grandfather’s wrist—there was probably sand from a thousand different shores clogging up the cogs. It didn’t work and was rapidly depreciating in value, so in that sense it stood in handsomely for my family. Then it really became one of them by vanishing from my life completely. I was fucked if I knew where it went missing from, my room or Zoe’s. I wasn’t blaming anyone at that stage, I just couldn’t help but wonder.
LIU WAI:
Andrew says him and Zoe fought because she invited me out? Interesting. I’m sure that’s how he’s spinning it now, but they definitely weren’t arguing about the guest list. Listen, Zoe shouting was one thing. What made it really unusual was that she kept repeating one word. As if to say, “I can’t believe this.” And what made it almost unique was that Andrew wasn’t saying anything in response. Like, he was clearly speechless, which was unheard of. The word Zoe kept repeating to him was, “Kim?” And I’m talking very much with the question mark attached…
ANDREW FLOWERS:
Well, fine. I suppose we’ll have to trust wonderful old Liu Wai’s memory, then, won’t we?
LIU WAI:
It’s no mystery. Listen, I owe no loyalty to Andrew fucking Flowers. My loyalty’s to Zoe, and I see no sense in protecting the feelings and reputations of people who might have had something to do with her disappearance. She was angry with him because he’d said Kim’s name while they were being intimate, like, while they were having sex. He realized immediately apparently, like, actually gasped. I think she was too shocked to even say anything at first, then she totally let him have it. This was about an hour before we were all due to hit the town together.
So…
Just something to keep in mind when he’s banging on about how boring and stupid and beneath him his girlfriend was. At least she always got his ridiculous name right.
ANDREW FLOWERS:
Fine. I don’t quite remember it that way, but fine.