As soon as the Christmas lights start going up, you know the anniversary’s right around the corner. It comes quicker every year. You brace yourself for whatever’s about to float to the surface—a memory, a feeling, a regret. I certainly wasn’t bracing myself for major revelations, though. Not some kind of eleventh-hour break in the case.
I was busy with work. To catch everyone up, my father cut me off, and although I’d failed my first year of university, subsequently dropping out altogether, I’d still managed to get a job at PC World in Manchester, selling electronic equipment for marginally more than a slave’s wage. In the five years I’d been working at the branch in the Trafford Centre, I’d leapt up the ranks—from lowly junior sales assistant to exalted senior sales assistant. Unfortunately, my rocket-fueled ascent came during a time of belt-tightening and upheaval for the firm, and I’d been notified that my role was under consultation. That was a nail-biter for me because I lived month to month, and the prospect of being shitcanned from my shit job was keeping me up at night. So no. I had no real sense of impending doom, but only because I was up to my tits in it already.
FINTAN MURPHY:
When you find yourself in a situation where years of good work might go down the drain because of some thoughtless, stupid actions, your first recourse can be to bargaining. At least, in this instance, my first recourse was to bargaining.
MARCUS LEE:
Murphy was hostile. Don’t let the charity show fool you—I had to hold that phone about a foot away from my ear when I called him. An expletive-filled rant about what I could and couldn’t do, where I could and couldn’t stick things, and a veiled threat of legal action. Like I say, you’re basically giving them the FYI, so it’s an eventuality you’re always prepared for. For my part, I was just trying to explain that our story could be all to the good. Zoe Nolan might be the center of his universe, but she’s not the center of anyone else’s. Our reporting would be putting her back in the public eye more than anything his precious foundation had managed. When he’d calmed down a bit, he asked me for the name of the person who’d made a complaint, which of course I declined to give him, and then he asked me not to go to print, imploring me on the grounds it might “hurt” Zoe.
FINTAN MURPHY:
Well, I suppose his recollection of events is probably more accurate than mine, and I’m sure I was being recorded, so there’s not much point disputing it. I would say that the man had a real way about him, though. He couldn’t have been happier that this instance of human weakness had found its way to my door. So I’m not proud of that first response, but I don’t think it was monstrous or irrational or outside of what anyone might say or do in similar circumstances, and I called him back a few minutes later for more details.
The second I got off that call, once I was convinced that what he’d told me was true, I began making arrangements to try and fix things. It wasn’t the kind of awareness I wanted, and especially not so close to December 17, but I’m not one of those people who buries their head in the sand and pretends the world’s not out there.
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
They’d been quiet years for me—quiet if not necessarily easy. I read an article about a man who’d lost his right hand in a climbing accident, and even though he knew it wasn’t there anymore, from time to time, he’d find himself reaching for something with it. That was what my relationship with Zoe was like by then. I knew she was gone, but I still found myself reaching for her. She moved in and out of my life in cycles. We shared a birthday, so that was always interesting. Hard to celebrate anything while you’re wondering where your sister is. And of course there was September, a month that started with so much promise for us back then, rapidly followed by December, the anniversary of her disappearance…
They were all like open-ended questions, times for self-interrogation, self-flagellation, self-harm. You know, What could I have done differently? When I left France, I’d felt sure it was over. I thought I could put my problems and my sister to rest, prove my worth to my parents and save my family, but that wasn’t how it worked out. I brought some confidence back across the Channel by looking Gary Matthews in the mouth, seeing what a bloated joke he was and walking away. But I had to accept what Victor Bisset and the French authorities told me.
Zoe’s wasn’t the body burned up in that house.
There was no evidence she’d ever been a target. Everyone else they’d grabbed had been someone seen by chance, not much forethought or planning, just a pill in their drink and then thrown in the back of that van.
I always tried to make sure I was busy in December, working as much as possible, so last Christmas was no different. I was still with the National Trust but at various other sites around the Lake District. I can’t remember where I was—driving out to Wordsworth House or something—when I got a phone call from the office saying a Mr. Murphy was trying to get hold of me. We’d never been close, we hadn’t spoken in years, so I knew it must be something serious. It was raining like crazy, and the reception was bad. I pulled to the side of the road and shouted, “Fintan Murphy wants to speak to me? You’re sure?”
ANDREW FLOWERS:
What do you call a group of teenagers who are let loose in the wild? A murder? A bastard of teens? Well, whatever it is, there was one in the shop that day, five or six of the fuckers, all dicking around making the computer screens sticky, typing “gay sex” into the search engines and being extremely amusing. When you have all that stuff on display, the gadgets and tablets, I suppose it’s inevitable. My job was essentially to move the mouth breathers along long enough to let an actual customer get a look in edgeways.
What was strange was that these kids were looking at me like I was their long-lost dad or something, and I don’t mean lovingly. More like I’d left their mother with a fake phone number and a tear in her eye, then never bothered to stump up for child support afterward. It’s a look I get occasionally. Whenever the story’s in the news again or the foundation launches a new appeal, the picture of me with scratch marks on my face inevitably floats to the surface somewhere, and I find myself on the receiving end of all these lingering hostile stares. That, coupled with all the Christmas decorations up in the shop, was making me pour a little heavier than usual when I got home. I think my liver was going gray faster than my hair.
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
When I got Fintan on the phone, we both said hello, probably both felt the temperature drop a few degrees, then he got right down to business. He said I could probably expect some press enquiries over the next few days, that it might get rough, and he wanted to offer me his full support. I said, “Press enquiries about fucking what, Fintan?”