KIMBERLY NOLAN:
What? No, Zoe never said anything like that to me. I remember that night for my own shitty reasons, though. She was acting really offhand, like she didn’t want me to be there. I couldn’t get her alone when we were in Fifth, she was always talking to Liu Wai in one corner or fighting with Andrew in another. Then I got separated from the others and had a bit of a crisis, ended up coming in really late. I always wondered why Zoe never checked on me the next day. She never asked me what happened or why I ghosted them. Until she went missing, that was the shittest night of my life, and I kind of had to deal with it on my own.
I guess it’s good to understand why, finally. Andrew never can say the right thing at the right time.
JAI MAHMOOD:
I was trashed that night. I was still a mess from the kicking I’d gotten in the car park, but really, I was starting to use the pills I was supposed to be selling for Vlad. So yeah, Andrew invited me out, but in a sense I wasn’t really there.
LIU WAI:
Andrew didn’t come back with us that night. Jai got into some fight on the dance floor, so they left together, and Kim just plain vanished on us. So it was just me and Zoe in the cab on our way back. She’d gone out in this bright-red jacket that had been stolen from our table when we went to the dance floor, but she was really cool about it, just shrugged and said she’d buy another. I tried talking to her, to broach the argument I’d overheard earlier, and that was when she told me what Andrew had done, like, saying Kim’s name while they were in bed. She seemed over it, said the “Andrew problem” would probably solve itself soon. That was music to my ears, and I asked if she had her eye on someone else. She just smiled and said, “All in good time.”
Then she changed the subject, suggested we take a shopping trip the next day. I told her there was no way I could afford to, but I’d go along for moral support. She said it was okay, it would be her treat. I kind of smiled and said, “Aw,” but I didn’t think much more about it until she got me up the next morning and told me to get ready. We took a cab to the Trafford Centre, where she bought me this gorgeous Ted Baker dress and then bought us both lunch as well. And that was the least of it. Like, there was steam coming off her credit card by the end of that day. I didn’t know much about her background, her family situation, but I came from a single-parent household and just thought, I guess this is how the other half live?
SAM LIMMOND, Ex-boyfriend of Alex Wilson:
Yeah, I was basically seeing Alex from the first week of the first term. We weren’t always exclusive, but it was a real relationship—at least it was to me. I only met Zoe once, because we tended to crash at my place. Al said there was always drama at hers, and the one time I stayed over, that was true. We were sitting on the sofa talking when Zoe and their other flatmate—Liu—came in with all these shopping bags. I think we found it funny. Not in a mean way, but Alex and me were Nine Inch Nails kinds of kids. Tattoos and straight vodka, and suddenly this it-girl satire started playing out in front of our eyes. Zoe disappeared while Liu made small talk, and then she came back with all these clothes that she laid out at Alex’s feet, telling her that they were hers if she wanted them. Al gently pointed out that they had quite different styles, but Zoe kept trying until Al had to quite forcefully say no, she didn’t want them. Then, as if to make some kind of point, Zoe turned to Liu and said, “Well, I want you to have my laptop.”
LIU WAI:
I had this busted-up old MacBook you could have heated an entire house with, I was forever cursing its existence. Zoe said she wanted me to have hers. I was like, “No, really, that’s too much,” but she insisted. She said after that note she’d found, it just didn’t feel the same, that I’d be doing her a massive favor.
SAM LIMMOND:
When Zoe went into her room to get it, Alex leaned in and kind of quietly told Liu she should politely decline. Liu just shrugged and said we’d just watched her try to politely decline. Al insisted that Liu actually decline. Liu started to say maybe this wasn’t any of our business, but we were trying to point out, like, “Doesn’t Zoe seem strange to you?” It just seemed so obvious to us she was going through some kind of manic episode. We’d both already been through one of those together, Alex and me, and there were a few more in our future. We knew the signs, and so, I’m sure, did Liu. It felt like she was taking advantage. When Zoe came back, Liu took that laptop without a fight.
So yeah, when Zoe went missing, it didn’t come as a huge shock. I thought it was sad but that she’d done something to herself. And there was the other side of things as well. Alex told me this story after, the real reason she’d tried to get Liu Wai to turn down that laptop. Al could be really abrupt. Indecisive for a long time and then very suddenly decisive, she did a lot of turning on her heel. So she must have announced she was leaving their flat for the day with absolute certainty, then an hour later had a typical change of heart and turned around. Only, when she got back there, she walked in on something that made her quite uncomfortable. She got inside, shouted hello, and went down the corridor toward the kitchen. When she got there, she said she found Andrew and Zoe pulling their clothes back on, both breathless, trying to style it out.
Their business, right?
Except when they disappeared into a bedroom, Al said she saw Zoe’s laptop, set up on the bookcase facing the sofa. It was filming. No one said or explained anything, but she said Zoe was acting weird. She said she looked pale and sick, like she was scared of something. Alex basically came away thinking they’d been making a sex tape, but mainly that Zoe was frightened of Andrew. You know, he did not want her to talk about whatever it was they’d been doing.
ANDREW FLOWERS:
I’m sorry, what is it that you’re asking me? Did I say the wrong name once while I was sleeping with my girlfriend? Did I fuck once in front of a camera? Did I upset Zoe from time to time? Or are you asking me something else? Are you, perhaps, asking if I had something to do with her disappearance?
SAM LIMMOND:
Anyway, Alex knew there could be footage on that laptop. Footage Zoe might not want out there in the world. And she was concerned because Zoe had just given it to Liu Wai, who could be like the town gossip.