But here you are asking me about my weakest subject, Kimberly Nolan. What can I tell you? I hardly know the girl.
FINTAN MURPHY, Zoe’s course mate and friend:
Right, Kimberly’s kidnapping, this sad story. Would you like my opinion? I mean, let’s put ourselves in poor Kimberly’s position for a moment. Born a girl, an almost identical twin, but with a sister who was simply more attractive than she was, simply more intelligent. A sister who was outgoing and prodigiously gifted musically. Someone who effortlessly charmed everyone she met. I think we all might struggle if we were up against that.
Okay, so, remaining in Kimberly’s shoes. You go away to university to get out from under your sister’s shadow, but owing to an unfortunate series of events, you end up studying at the same place, living in the same flat even. Your physical resemblance is such that people routinely doubletake at you around town, seem visibly disappointed when they realize you’re Kimberly and not Zoe.
So you lose a load of weight and start wearing black. You cut your hair short and go goth. Your sister is reserved in some senses, so you act out and start sleeping around. She drinks sensibly, so you drink like an open hole in the floor. She goes missing and becomes front-page news, so you generate this harrowing, incredible tale of how you were kidnapped once too. I’d say in some senses that’s perfectly understandable. It’s one of the few things about Kimberly that really is.
JAI MAHMOOD, Zoe’s friend:
I don’t remember much, but I’m fairly sure Fintan wasn’t even there that night.
LIU WAI, Zoe’s flatmate and friend:
I think what probably happened was that Zoe and I decided to go out? I know it was a Tuesday, which is like a big student night in Manchester. Kim always tried to involve herself in mine and Zoe’s plans, so I generally expected her to try and tag along. And she did, in that kind of dour way where it’s clear she thinks she’s doing you a massive favor. This was before she dyed her hair black and stuff, but she always had that kind of personality. And then, because it was the three of us, the boys ended up coming too. So that made for an eventful evening…
JAI MAHMOOD:
Y’know how some people drink so much of something they can never go near it again? They have to hold their nose while your Jim Beam’s being poured because of that night they drank a whole bottle of the stuff and spent six hours blowing it out both ends? [Laughs] That’s basically how I got sober, bro. One brand at a time, pushing everything so far over the line that I could never touch it again. I think the only thing I haven’t had a bad night on by now’s hard seltzer, and being honest, that’s just so I’ve got something saved for the deathbed.
ANDREW FLOWERS, Zoe’s boyfriend:
The Kimnapping? I mean, I know I shouldn’t laugh, but we did go to Fifth Avenue. If you don’t know it, it’s the ten or eleventh circle of hell, this grotesque indie disco warehouse where girls are generally assured of a cheap night out. That’s because they order one drink and some pale-faced northern boy called Gaz or Trev or something spikes it with Rohypnol. The girls are legless before they can even request Adele from the DJ. From some angles, that’s the only good thing about the place.
JAI MAHMOOD:
Point being, I was fully in that phase of my life back then, yeah? Not just embracing disaster, but taking it home and really giving it one. I’d had my head kicked in a few weeks before, so I thought I had a good excuse for being a fuckup. It was only over the next few years I started running low on excuses. So anyway, I know it’s criminal to say, but I don’t remember much about that night. It’s not one where I can scroll through the viewfinder and see some stills or shaky handheld footage, it’s just not there at all. Like, file missing, y’know? But if Fintan’s saying he was there, then he’s full of it.
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
Looking back, I’m Bruce Springsteen. I wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face. Just please not the dress I was wearing that night. I was starting to experiment, trying to put some of my real self on display. I’d found this cool kind of Wednesday Addams outfit at Affleck’s Palace, and it made me feel more like myself than I had before, less like a second-rate Zoe and something more like Kim. It was the only time we ever went out as a group, which is strange when you read the papers from back then. You’d think we were thick as thieves when really we were just thick as kids. And everyone was acting invincible, no idea what was coming around the corner.
Jai had taken something, which he usually had. Andrew was in a bad mood, which he usually was. Him and Zoe were arguing, so the rest of us all had to suffer. Saying that, I’m not sure Zoe even really noticed. She was the most invincible of us all, everything-proof and stunning, wearing this luminescent red jacket, ultrahot red all over. Matching red lipstick and a slightly visible red bra. Zoe was busy being noticed.
ANDREW FLOWERS:
After Zoe went missing, the police became oddly fixated on that night, so certain details stuck. Yes, Zoe had on some red thing that they could probably see in outer space. If she’d still been wearing it when she went missing, they’d have picked her up in five seconds flat. And if Kim says we were fighting, then I’m sure that we were, it was more or less our default setting. Once we started in on each other, neither one of us could ever find the off switch.
JAI MAHMOOD:
They told me afterward that I lit up and started blazing on the dance floor. Like I say, that night’s a blank slate for me, but it wouldn’t be completely out of character. I know the bouncers wouldn’t let me in when I went back a week later, so yeah, if they say I got kicked out, I probably got kicked out.
LIU WAI:
It’s sad to say, but I think even then Jai was a really troubled soul? I think he always felt like a bit of an outsider. Where I’m one of those people who feels comfortable talking to anyone at any level, quite Virgo, Jai kind of wore his brown-ness? Like, he really wore his race. He felt like he had to be kind of street and smoke weed and listen to rap songs, where, I don’t know. I’ve always seemed to fit in much more naturally?
ANDREW FLOWERS:
I thought Jai getting kicked out was the best thing about that night. He was so out of it, he started smoking on the dance floor, offering cigarettes to girls and stuff. Then something painful started playing, “Sex on Fire” or whatever, and suddenly we were surrounded on all sides, just Midlanders, just Waynes and Janes as far as the eye could see. He offered this little blond number a light and she accepted. They were laughing, getting close, then this cinder block–headed prick started pushing him around, speaking fluent fucking caveman. “Hands off my girl,” et cetera, et cetera. As I recall, Jai tried to apologize but ended up coughing two lungs full of smoke into the guy’s face by accident. He went predictably apeshit.