Waiting for Wednesday

clear it would be
successful. A small group from a revolutionary organization had come with banners
proclaiming the bigotry of the police force ingeneral. But there were
no relatives waiting for Conley. His mother had died while he was in prison and his
sister hadn’t been to see him since he was arrested. She had told Fearby that she
was glad she was married and had taken the name of her husband, because his name made
her feel sick. She wanted nothing to do with him. And there were no friends either: he
had always been a lonely figure in the small town where he had lived, someone who stood
on the edge, looking in baffled wistfulness at life going on. After he was arrested,
neighbours said that they had always known he was odd, creepy. It hadn’t surprised
them at all. Apart from Fearby, he had had no visitors in prison until the last few
weeks.
    Diana McKerrow, Conley’s solicitor,
stood near the gates holding a bottle of sparkling wine in readiness. She spoke to the
press on behalf of her client, reading from a piece of paper that she pulled out of her
jacket pocket: words about the scandal of the police investigation, the lost years that
Conley would never recover, the faith of a few good souls who had never ceased to
believe in his innocence. She didn’t mention Fearby by name, and Fearby himself
stood apart from the small crowd. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting.
After so many years of working towards this moment, it felt thin and dreary. One
overweight man shuffling anxiously out of the gates, wincing as the cameras flashed.
    The journalists surged forward. Microphones
were held out to him.
    ‘How does it feel to be
free?’
    ‘Are you going to sue?’
    ‘What are your plans now, Mr
Conley?’
    ‘Where will you go?’
    ‘What’s the first thing
you’ll do?’
    ‘Are you angry?’
    ‘What have you missed?’
    ‘Can you tell us your thoughts about the
police?’
    Fearby was certain that some of them had
chequebooks ready. They wanted his story now. All these years he’d been vilified
and then forgotten; now he was a hero – except he didn’t fit the role of hero. His
replies came out in mumbles, half-sentences: ‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘What
d’you mean?’ He glanced from side to side anxiously. Diana McKerrow put one
arm under his elbow. His MP arranged himself on the other side, smiling for the
cameras.
    Fearby knew that they would all soon forget
about Conley again. He would be left in peace, in his little room in a house full of
other misfits and loners, passive and defeated. He felt a pang of simultaneous guilt
followed at once by resentment: was he going to have to be Conley’s only friend
even now? Visit him and take him out for a drink, try to find him an occupation? Was
this his reward for freeing him into the world?
    He inched his way through the crush and
touched Conley on the arm. ‘Hello, George,’ he said.
‘Congratulations.’
    ‘Hello,’ said Conley. He smelt
unwashed; his skin had a grey prison-pallor and his hair was thinning.
    ‘You’re going to be busy for the
rest of the day. I just wanted to say hello and give you my phone number. When you want,
give me a call and I’ll come and see you.’ He forced enthusiasm into his
voice. ‘We can have a meal, go for a drink, a walk.’ He hesitated.
‘You might find all this attention hard, but it’ll die down soon.
You’ll need to think about what you’re going to do next.’
    ‘Next?’
    ‘I’ll come and see
you.’
    Conley stared at him, his lower lip hanging
loose. He was like a small, fat child, thought Fearby. It didn’t feel like a happy
ending.
    Later, at the press conference, the officer
in charge of the investigation read out a statement. He wished to be candid about the
fact that mistakes had been made. George Conley’s confession to the murder of
Hazel Barton had been obtained – here he coughed, grimaced – without following the
proper procedures.
    ‘You mean illegally,’ someone
shouted from the back.
    Steps had been taken, the officer continued.
Reprimands delivered. Procedures tightened. The same mistakes would not be made
again.
    ‘What about Mr Conley?’ asked a
young woman in the front row.
    ‘I’m sorry?’
    ‘He’s been in prison since
2005.’
    ‘And we’re sorry for the
mistakes that were made.’
    ‘Has anyone been fired?’ called
a voice.
    The inspector’s face tightened.
‘As I say, we have looked very carefully at the way the investigation was
conducted.