Waiting for Wednesday

notebook from her bag and
flipped through it until she found the page she wanted. ‘You know people who are
good with technical things, don’t you? Finding things on the Internet.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Sasha, warily.
    ‘I want to see Seamus Dunne.
I’ve got his phone numberbut I don’t know where he lives.
There must be ways of finding out.’
    ‘I’m not sure that’s a
good idea,’ said Sasha. ‘If you’re going to get into a fight again and
get arrested, Karlsson may not be able to get you out again.’
    ‘It’s nothing like that,’
said Frieda. ‘I just need to talk to him. In person. Can that be done?’
    Sasha looked at the notebook. ‘I
suppose so,’ she said. She took her phone from the table and punched the number
into it.
    ‘What are you doing?’ Frieda
asked, but Sasha just held up her hand.
    ‘Hello,’ she said, into the
phone, in a nasal tone quite different from her own. ‘Is that Mr Seamus Dunne?
Yes? We’re actually trying to make a delivery to you and our driver seems to have
the wrong address. Can you confirm it for me?’ She picked up a pen and started
writing in Frieda’s notebook.
‘Yes … Yes … Yes … Thank you so much, we’ll be
right with you.’ She pushed the notebook across to Frieda.
    ‘That wasn’t quite what I meant
when I said I needed technical help.’
    ‘No violence, please.’
    ‘I’ll do my best.’



EIGHTEEN
    ‘No,’ said Seamus Dunne, when he
saw Frieda. ‘No way. And how do you even know where I live?’
    She peered over his shoulder. Student house.
Bare boards. Bikes in the hall. Still-packed boxes.
    ‘I just want to talk to
you.’
    ‘Talk to the newspaper. Or Bradshaw.
It wasn’t my responsibility.’
    ‘I’m not interested in any of
that,’ said Frieda. ‘Or the article. It was just something you
said.’
    Dunne’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
‘Is this a trick?’
    Frieda almost laughed at that. ‘You
mean, am I coming to see you under false pretences?’
    Dunne shook his head nervously.
‘Bradshaw said we were all in the clear. It was completely legal.’
    ‘I told you,’ said Frieda.
‘I don’t care. I’m here to say two things. Let me in and I’ll
say them. Then I’ll go.’
    Dunne seemed in an agony of indecision.
Finally he opened the door and let her in. She walked through the hall to the kitchen.
It looked as if a rugby team had had a takeaway and not cleared up, then had a party and
not cleared up, had got up the next morning, had had breakfast and not cleared up. And
then left. Seamus Dunne was a bit old for this.
    He noticed her expression. ‘You look
shocked,’ he said. ‘If I’d known you were coming, I’d have
tidied.’
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘It
reminds me of being a student.’
    ‘Well, I’m still a
student,’ he said. ‘It may not look likemuch, but
it’s better than the alternative. So, I guess you’ve come to shout at
me.’
    ‘Do you think you deserve to be
shouted at?’
    Dunne leaned back on the counter, almost
dislodging a pile of plates topped by a saucepan containing two mugs. ‘Dr Bradshaw
told us about an experiment where a researcher sent some students to different
psychiatrists and they just had to say they had heard a thud inside their heads. Every
single one of them was diagnosed with schizophrenia and admitted to a psychiatric
hospital.’
    ‘Yes, I know the experiment,’
said Frieda. ‘It wouldn’t be allowed today.’
    ‘Maybe that’s a pity,’
said Dunne, ‘because it was pretty revealing, don’t you think? But you
don’t want to hear that.’
    ‘The way I see it,’ said Frieda,
‘people who weren’t really psychopaths were sent to therapists and only one
of them made the mistake of taking them seriously.’
    ‘So what were the two things you
wanted to say?’
    ‘I was interested in what you said in
the article.’
    ‘I thought so.’
    ‘No, not the way you think. You said I
asked you about irrelevant things, food, sleeping. By the way, how is your
sleeping?’
    ‘Fine.’
    ‘No, really. Do you sleep through the
night? Or do you still wake up?’
    ‘I wake up a bit. Like most
people.’
    ‘And what do you think
about?’
    ‘Stuff, you know. I go over
things.’
    ‘And your appetite?’
    He shrugged and there was a pause.
‘Why are you looking at me like that?’
    ‘Do you know what I think?’
    ‘You’re probably about to tell
me.’
    ‘When you came to see me, pretending to
be looking for help, I think you subconsciously used that as an