True Crime Story(5)
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.
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
With Jai, people saw his slacker image and stopped looking, but there was more to him than that. He took these pictures, just tuned out the world and found amazing things that we were all looking at but none of us could see. The bouncers didn’t know that, though, they just saw trouble. This wasted Asian boy who’d walked in with two black eyes. They were going overboard, pulling him out by the hair and stuff, so I guess there was some racism in it too. I started to follow them so I could explain and check he was okay, but I’d just been Exorcist-sick in the toilets. The floor was like jelly under my feet, so I stopped when I got to the stairs. I thought if I was leaving, I’d better find Zoe first and tell her. Something was wrong with me. I felt dizzy and sick, which was weird because I hadn’t even really been drinking.
FINTAN MURPHY:
If Kimberly says she hadn’t been drinking, then I suppose we have to take her word for it. There’s a first time for everything, after all.
LIU WAI:
Kim was plastered.
ANDREW FLOWERS:
No, I wasn’t counting Kim’s drinks, and no, I wasn’t spiking them either, if that’s what you’re asking me. She’d been gone for some time, so I just assumed she’d left when Jai got kicked out. Zoe and I weren’t getting along, and I could never quite stand Liu Wai, so I politely excused myself.
LIU WAI:
I think I was just saying that Jai had broken the rules, like, the club is nonsmoking. Andrew told me I could wank him off with a pair of chopsticks and stormed out. I mean, aside from being a low-level hate crime, doesn’t that imply to you that he’s got a small penis?
ANDREW FLOWERS:
I’m sure she remembers better than I do. I’m afraid I didn’t necessarily see Liu Wai as a person back then, she was just some strange Chinese tumor attached to my girlfriend.
LIU WAI:
I’m from fucking Essex.
FINTAN MURPHY:
Yes, Andrew and Zoe, the famous loving couple…
LIU WAI:
Andrew and Zoe were always challenging to be around. Nowadays, I think we’d call their relationship quite toxic? Just a kind of unsafe chemical spill of a couple. Like, the only possible solution for both parties was extraction. I’m sure Zoe was upset to see him go, she blamed herself when things were bad. It was just that most of the time, Andrew looked visibly uncomfortable around her? You’d see him sort of itching to get away.
But then he’d always be dropping in, always hanging around, always inviting himself out. A lot like Kim when you think about it. Given what happened between them all later, it’s one of those things you can’t help but torture yourself about afterwards. I mean, let’s get it straight. He never loved Zoe.
ANDREW FLOWERS:
Perhaps it might seem circumspect from the vantage point of years passed, but I truly couldn’t stand Fifth, and I’m sure that’s why I left. In nightclubs, as in life, it’s my opinion that too many cocks ruin the broth. And Jai couldn’t even remember his own name, couldn’t even remember his own PIN—believe me, I tried to get it for the cab fare. So, monstrously, yes, I decided to take him home rather than let him sleep it off in the gutter. If I’d known Kim was struggling that night, I’d have taken her home too. That’s just the kind of guy I am.