MARCUS LEE:
Yeah, Lionel called, shitting it down the phone. These guys can take a choking, believe me, but from the sounds of it, Flowers still had him by the throat. He put it to me, what they’d said, and I thought it sounded interesting. Then Kim got on the line and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
I’d had requests for years to tell my side of the story, to do an interview or a photo shoot at the tower. I’d always said no—the idea repulsed me—but I thought, right there and then in that moment, let’s cash it all in. I told him if he killed the story of me and Andrew and if he had the number the tip came in from, I’d give him a full interview.
MARCUS LEE:
We were fresh off the reporting we’d done around her dad’s alleged abuses of power and still reeling from the leaked sex tape, so there’d be plenty for us to talk about before we even got on to Zoe. There was also the inevitable blowback an article like that might have. Bad news for Kim but good news for us—it could run and run.
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
Andrew and me were still standing in the street. I looked around and said I’d need somewhere to stay. Marcus suggested putting me in the Hilton, the skyscraper in Manchester. I was about to tell him he had a deal when Andrew took the phone out of my hand.
ANDREW FLOWERS:
I said, “Marcus, hi. Here’s how it’s gonna be. You get Kim, you get a photo shoot, you get her signature today, but the price is ten grand, no ifs and no buts. Her minibar had better stay stocked as well. Call me back when you want to say yes.” Then I hung up. Kim started to give me an angry look, but the phone was vibrating before she’d even fully frowned. Take it from me, if you’re selling your soul, don’t do it cheap.
MARCUS LEE:
I didn’t even blink before I called back and said yes—it was a steal. My one condition was that I wouldn’t give her the number this tip came in from until the article had run, I didn’t want her backing out. I took the train up there that day, checked in and spent December 17, 18 and 19 interviewing her and writing the piece. What we got—the story about her being kidnapped from outside Fifth Avenue—was a blinder. It ran on December 20, a tight turnaround but nice for the anniversary.
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
Marcus brought the paper to my room that morning before he checked out. I wasn’t interested, I never read it. I just wanted the number that the tip about me and Andrew at Owens Park had come from. He kept his word, said I should let him know if it gave me more to say. When I saw the number, I knew it was familiar, but I had to go back through my phone to work out why. Then I saw it was the same one Fintan Murphy had called me from six days before, when he broke the news about what Dad had done.
From: [email protected]
Sent: 2019-03-22 19:20
To: you
on Fri, Mar 22, 2019, Joseph Knox [email protected] wrote:
Hey—sorry—it was a little bit awkward when you called. XXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXX Also on deadline but can maybe squeeze in ten mins later tonight? Found it hard to follow what you were saying without seeing a transcript but were you ever able to follow up on Fintan’s alibi? His flatmate/lover Connor Sullivan??
Really glad to hear you finally saw a doctor. I’ve got everything crossed for you, E.
Jx
# # #
It’s okay. XXX XXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXX
Yes—I called Connor a couple of weeks back. He confirmed Fintan’s alibi from the night Zoe went missing. Said Fintan got home late (12–1am) and went to bed. He and Fintan went back to Owens Park the next morning to pack up the speakers Connor had rented out for the party. Connor didn’t know the rest of them, he was a few years older, but he said Fintan turned green when he heard Zoe was missing. He left Connor to it while he went to join the search.
Sounds like that was the story of their life, like, Zoe kind of came between them. He’s married now but started asking how Fintan was, if he’d ever managed to have kids, etc. Apparently that was the big dream back in the day. I’m starting to feel like this might be the book of lost dreams…
My guy from Fairfield Property Management’s been back in touch. I asked before if there was any way he could build me a list of people who worked at the site in the summer of 2011, just before the students arrived. At the time he didn’t think so, but his wife’s been in the attic and thinks she might have some old time cards(!) She’s wading through them now.
Yeah, I’m glad I saw the doctor too. She says she’ll be in touch. I was expecting to lie awake all night worrying but I can hardly keep my eyes open. Don’t worry about calling me back, I know you have other priorities.
E
28.
“Being Wrong”
FINTAN MURPHY:
It was a rough few days. The revelations about Robert’s personal life on the fourteenth, followed by the leak of the Andrew-Kim video, and then the anniversary of Zoe’s disappearance on the seventeenth. So when I wake up to two phones ringing on the twentieth, messages coming at me from all angles, I thought, what now? Of course, it was the world spinning off its axis in response to Kimberly’s Mail interview.
I was furious, as you know.
It felt to me like she was taking oxygen away from Zoe. That’s why I spent that week talking to you about it, ranting it all off my chest. When I got messages from the office in the wake of the news saying that Kimberly had called, that she was trying to get in touch, I ignored them. I knew you were interviewing her, though. And I knew her kidnapping story would make for a chapter in the book, so I think I started using you as a go-between, saying cruel things, knowing they’d get back to her. Christmas week went by like that, both of us meeting you at different times to trash each other. At a certain point, I just thought, Who’s this helping? You know, I wanted a fresh start, to draw a line under it all.
I went into the office on New Year’s Day, hoping to leave it behind. Then I’m in the middle of a meeting when Andrew Flowers storms into the room demanding to speak with me. I haven’t seen him in seven years. I haven’t even thought of him until this business with the video, and more to the point, I haven’t wanted to. I start to say, “Look, whatever this is, you’ll just have to wait,” when I see Kimberly standing behind him in the doorway.