I was wary of the photograph because it felt too good to be true. After spending time with the family, with Rob especially, I knew how it might get jumped on and interpreted as the answer to all our problems. And I’ll admit I was concerned about how fast it might find its way into the press.
Evidence can’t exist in a vacuum. You’re talking about inanimate objects that become supercharged because of the context surrounding them—so much so that they might even change meaning on you sometimes. Yes, we had this picture of an unknown man found among the possessions of a missing woman. But it was also a glossy photograph, ripped out from a magazine or some kind of publication, and it had been found in what amounted to a communal space. We only had Jai’s word for it that Zoe even used that tin. The entrance to the tower’s roof was a service door, residents weren’t supposed to go up there, but the lock was broken and they obviously did. Zoe and Jai went out there often enough, so why not others?
In fact, a few people did come forward saying they’d been on the roof themselves before Zoe’s disappearance, smoking cigarettes or getting the view. Some of them had even seen her up there. I just urged the team to find out everything they could before alerting the family and giving them false hope, especially at Christmas. I’d been on the scene, and I’d spent a lot of time out at the tower by this point. I knew someone could have planted it there if they really wanted to.
JAI MAHMOOD:
They sat me down and started showing me picture after picture but kept circling back to one of them again and again. Some city boy I’d never seen before, which is what I told them. They kept asking me about the roof, about me and Zoe, our arrangement, the tin. Did she keep anything else in there except for the pills? I said, “Not as far as I know.” Then they told me that this picture had been found inside the tin and my brain started to bake, man.
Look, we were careful. We didn’t want to get caught, and we were meeting on the roof of a fucking tower block. So I’m shouting this one out for the cheap seats: We were the only ones who knew about that tin. Y’know, if she didn’t tell her boyfriend, didn’t tell her best friend and didn’t tell her twin sister, who else was there? And like I said, I’d gone back there a few days after the party. I swear on my family’s life I looked in the thing and there was no picture. Someone put it there after she went missing, and the only person who’d know about that spot was the same nut who’d been stalking her.
SARAH MANNING:
One thing we were certain of was that the tin, the surrounding area, the banister on the staircase and the door leading up onto the roof had all been spot-cleaned. Every surface wiped down with alcohol. Now, whether you believe that could have been a drug-addled Jai or not, it’s certainly disturbing.
SALLY NOLAN:
They called ahead, said they had something to show us. This is Christmas Day. Course, every thought goes through your mind at once. She’s dead and she’s alive and she’s on the other side of the world. She’s being held hostage, or she doesn’t want to come back, everything. The detective, James, came in with Sarah and showed us a picture of a man, the one that had been found in Zoe’s things. We passed it around: me, Rob, Fintan and Kim. Liu Wai had gone home for Christmas by then. Rob thought he knew him but couldn’t say from where. Kim looked at the picture for the longest time. We all held our breath.
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
I thought I recognized him somehow, but Sarah stressed we shouldn’t put all our faith in this one picture. It had been found in Zoe’s things but was cut out from a magazine, so it might have been anything. I might know him from a film or an advert. It made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck, though. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was the same shadow man I’d seen standing outside our building the night before Halloween. I wondered if we’d met.
ROBERT NOLAN:
There was something about the face. I just couldn’t place it. So to my way of thinking, the next step was to get the picture on the news. Let’s get him out there, a wanted, dangerous man. Let’s warn people. But the way Manning and James looked at each other told me I’d have to fight for it.
SARAH MANNING:
You have to remember that all we had was a picture that looked like it had been cut out of a magazine. The chain of evidence didn’t even lead conclusively back to Zoe.
FINTAN MURPHY:
We were all sitting in silence in one of those wretched tower communal spaces when I got a brain wave. Having spent more time online than was probably healthy, I asked if they knew of Google’s reverse image search and was surprised when they said that they didn’t. Essentially, you upload a picture that you can’t trace the provenance of, and it finds identical ones online, usually taking you to the original source. We were in the tower, so we went downstairs there and then to the computer lab, unfortunately to no avail. We uploaded the picture, but it didn’t match any others online. To me, that seemed to suggest that it wasn’t an advert. This wasn’t an actor or a singer or something.
LIU WAI:
I was contacted by Essex Police on Boxing Day? They came out to my mum’s place with a copy of the picture so I could look at it. In spite of the circumstances, it was kind of thrilling, and I was desperate to help. I’d felt guilty about leaving, but I didn’t want to have Mum on her own for Christmas. So I stared at it for a long time, like, smoke coming out of my eyes and ears, brain on endless scroll, but I didn’t know him. I have a pretty good memory and felt safe in saying I’d never met him before.
I suppose if one thing stood out to me, it was that he looked a little bit like Andrew Flowers? Kind of arrogant and rich and snobbish but handsome in a way. I wondered if this was the other man she’d hinted she might be seeing when we were in the cab a few weeks before? Y’know, like, maybe Zoe had a type…
SALLY NOLAN:
That was that. They left and we went back to waiting, all except for Rob. Rob said he needed some fresh air, but I knew what he’d really be doing. Heading straight down to the Great Central to see if any of his press friends were still around, anyone he could drown his sorrows with. Some Christmas.
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
Afterward, we were told to keep it between ourselves. Sarah really stressed that leaked information might harm or prejudice a case, but the lead was still right there in the newspapers the next day. The next day…
We weren’t allowed to keep copies of the picture, which is probably the only reason it wasn’t in there alongside the story.
SARAH MANNING:
The money in Zoe’s bank account seemed like a more promising lead to me. The first aspect of discovery on that was to speak to the people in her life. We knew she’d been spending beyond her means, but the one person around her who would have immediately questioned that, Kim, had been shut out from her sister’s life. To the rest of her friends, I suppose Zoe affected the air of someone who could walk out one day and come back with a new iPhone like it was no big deal.