Waiting for Wednesday

yourself that he wasn’t
a psychopath. There was no need to report him. I may have had some concerns about this
particular man, but I wouldn’t discuss that with anyone but him.’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ said Jilly
Freeman, ‘but this experiment was to test how therapists respond when they are
confronted with a patient who shows the classic signs, established by research over the
years, of being a psychopath. The public will want to know whether they are being
protected.’
    ‘I’m going to talk to you for
one more minute,’ said Frieda, ‘and then I’m putting the phone down.
You’ve told me that he wasn’t actually a psychopath. He was just saying
psychopathic things.’
    ‘Don’t psychopaths say
psychopathic things? What else do you have to go on, apart from what patients say to
you?’
    ‘And second, as I said to Seamus Dunne
himself, psychopaths don’t ask for help. He was talking about lack of empathy but
he wasn’t displaying it. That’s my answer.’
    ‘And you trusted yourself to ignore
the classic signs of a psychopath?’
    ‘Your minute’s up,’ said
Frieda, and ended the call.
    She looked at Reuben. ‘What are you
doing here?’ she said.
    ‘I just saw Josef driving
away.’
    ‘He’s working on my
bathroom.’
    ‘I guess that’s why I
can’t track him down.’ His expression hardened. ‘It was her,
wasn’t it? It was that journalist, what’s her name?’
    ‘It was a woman called Jilly
Freeman,’ said Frieda.
    ‘That’s it, that’s the
one.’
    ‘How do you know?’
    Reuben emptied his glass. ‘Because
they’ve done it to me as well,’ he said. ‘They’ve fucked me the
way they’ve fucked you. Jilly rang me up and broke the news to me, and in the
middle of our conversation she mentioned your name as well. I tried to ring you but
there was no answer.’
    ‘I’ve been out,’ said
Frieda.
    ‘I thought I’d better come
straight round. Jesus, I need a cigarette. Can we go outside?’
    He fetched another can of beer from the
kitchen, then opened the door and stepped outside on to the street. Frieda followed him.
He handed her the beer while he lit his cigarette. He took a succession of deep drags on
it. ‘This young man,’ said Reuben. ‘He said he wanted to talk to me.
He’d heard such good things about me. He was worried about himself. He’d
been cruel to animals as a child, he had fantasies of hurting women. Blah blah, you know
the rest.’
    ‘What did you say to him?’
    ‘I said I’d see him for a bit.
And then Ms Jilly rings me up and tells me that I’m going to be on the front page
for letting a psychopath loose on the streets.’
    ‘What did you say to her?’
    He took another deep drag on his cigarette.
‘I should have said what you said. That sounded good. I lost it. I just shouted at
her and slammed the phone down.’ He jabbed a finger at Frieda. ‘We’re
going to sue them. That fucker Hal Bradshawand that fucking
journalist and her paper. We’re going to take them down.’
    ‘What for?’ said Frieda.
    Reuben banged his fist against the wall of
the house. ‘For deception,’ he said. ‘And violating our privacy. And
for libel.’
    ‘We’re not going to sue
them,’ said Frieda.
    ‘I was going to say that it’s
all right for you,’ said Reuben. ‘But you’re in a state of distress.
You’re recovering from injury. They can’t do this to us.’
    Frieda put a hand on his shoulder. ‘We
should just leave it,’ she said.
    Reuben turned to Frieda and something in his
look alarmed her, fierce and defeated at the same time. ‘I know, I know,’ he
said. ‘I should just shrug it off. Ten years ago I would have laughed it off. I
would almost have welcomed it. But I feel I’ve had it. That journalist. I’ll
show her fantasies about hurting women.’
    People had been gathering since midday, but
there had been minor delays, the last spasms of a clogged bureaucratic system that had
kept George Conley in prison for months after it had become clear he would have to be
released. It was nearly three o’clock in the afternoon when he eventually emerged
from Haston Prison into watery sunlight, clutching one plastic bag and wearing an
overcoat that was too tight and much too thick for a spring day. There were beads of
sweat on his pale, fleshy face.
    Most of the people waiting for him were
journalists and photographers. His local MP was there as well, although Fearby knew how
little he had done for Conley, only joining the campaign when it was