A large blazing bowl burned at the gate, throwing wild red shadows onto the wet road. Solomon looked up the grey steps leading to the imposing doorway. A light glimmered in one of the side glass panels; through it he could see a gathering of people.
The place chilled Solomon’s heart. How often had he nearly ended up in debtors’ gaol?
Still, you managed to keep out of it, he comforted himself. Always one step ahead of the sheriff.
He sighed. At the age of thirty he was running out of steam. His vagrant life was catching up with him. He’d left Dublin in a blaze of scandal only to run from London ten years later, with Stanley Jordon looking for his head on a plate. Suddenly, Solomon was tired. Sick and tired of looking over his shoulder. Sick and tired of trying to patch together a living, of scrimping and saving and making no headway. He was worn out and worn down and riddled with guilt, wishing he was anybody else. He shivered, a single drop of rain sliding down the nape of his neck and trickling along his spine, reminding him that he had no backbone.
Don’t be a pansy, he told himself. Buck up and get inside.
Solomon took a deep breath and pushed open the large oak door only to find mayhem in the reception area. All the tradesmen who normally plied their trade during the day had returned to conduct their business. One cobbler weighed down with a basket and toolbox was jabbering loudly, ‘But we were banned earlier, packed off. I’ve six pairs of mended shoes here to be paid for.’ Another man with a shifty eye was pointing back out the door, saying, ‘I’ve a horse and cart full of ale to be brought down to the tap.’ Hell-cat women screeched that they had assignations and messages to deliver. There were wig-makers and tailors, tobacco dealers and coal merchants, women with baskets of candles and soap, and all were bawling and complaining to a line of guards standing in the way of the door.
‘It’s orders,’ one of the guards hollered, his large, unshaven chin jutting forward, his gun gripped over his chest. ‘Get back,’ he growled. ‘Back.’
A man with a large boil the size of an egg bulging on his left cheek prodded the air with his finger and grumbled, ‘The Cut will not be pleased about this. He’ll want his money. I’ll send him to you to collect, will I?’
The crowd stiffened and became still, everyone looking at the line of guards to see where the threat would land. It was the gruffest-looking guard who responded.
‘The Cut’ll get his money, it’s a matter of timing. Now out yez go.’
The throng grumbled. One of the women screeched, ‘But Betty Handshake is in there and Fred and Jessop.’
The guards were having none of it.
‘Until this Olocher malarkey has quietened down, yer not allowed to pass. Them’s the orders.’
The crowd was not for turning. When the entrance door knocked open and a coffin maker carrying a fresh coffin barged in, faintly stunned by the constricted reception area, there was a fresh outburst that drowned out the coffin maker’s protest, ‘But it’s a delivery for O’Meara, who’s to be executed tomorrow.’ The horde harangued that if the coffin maker could get in they could get in.
Two of the guards launched forward, poking people with the barrel of their guns, trying to herd them out.
‘Go on,’ they cried as they pushed. ‘There’s to be a shutdown of usual trades until the Olocher matter is done.’
Solomon tugged the sleeve of the least rough-looking guard and leaned in to whisper. ‘The Board has requested I carry out a survey,’ he lied. ‘Matter of geography.’
The guard jolted a little on hearing a reference to the Board. He narrowed his watery eyes and jerked his arm free of Solomon’s light grip to go and mutter something to his fellow turnkey.
When Solomon was unceremoniously pushed into the corridor and the door briskly slammed and locked behind him, he heard howls and gripes of ‘what the hell’ from the disconsolate throng. A scuffle quickly erupted into a belligerent row, forcing one guard to let off a shot to quell the possibility of a riot.
Solomon stood a moment and peered down a green corridor lit by nests of candles cluttered in filthy niches. He heard voices in the distance. People laughing. A woman squealed, her laugh a high, piercing volley that echoed, disturbing the candle flames, making them flicker. Solomon walked towards the noise, passing locked cell doors. Obviously the keeper had tried to give the impression of a tidy shop, at least while members of the Board might be sniffing about. Now that the Board were anxious to discover how Olocher managed to get a weapon to kill himself, and keen to explore the governance of the gaol, the Keeper was doing his best to convince all and sundry that he ran a respectable establishment. Solomon imagined what a regular night in the Black Dog might be like, doors flung open, the corridors and rooms full to the brim with doxies and gamblers, brewers and hustlers, periwig menders and rag traders, the walls ringing with noisy bustling vendors eking out a black living among the hardened and hopeless. But Olocher’s suicide had put a stop to the usual trading customs and diversions. Solomon heard someone sobbing softly. The door to the room where the laughing was coming from flew open and a man wearing only a shirt stumbled into the hall and threw up. Someone yelled and clapped, shouting, ‘Go on, Charlie, flash the hash, good lad.’
Charlie crumpled to his knees, his stockings wrinkled about his ankles, a bottle hanging loosely in his fingers. Someone slammed the door shut after him and the sound of a melodeon tripped brightly through the air.
‘You all right? Charlie, is it?’ Solomon asked, reaching down to help him up.
Charlie was dissolute, pumped full of opium and bitter brandy. His eyes spun in his head, trying to focus.
‘You got any money?’ he asked, staring at Solomon’s outstretched hand.
Solomon slipped him three pennies.
‘I’m looking for Boxty,’ Solomon said.
Charlie nodded, hugging his empty brandy bottle close.
‘Do you know where he is?’ Solomon looked towards the end of the corridor.
‘Down in the nunnery,’ Charlie slurred. ‘Splashing about in Olocher’s blood.’
Charlie pointed to the faraway wall.
‘Boxty’s in trouble,’ Charlie whimpered. ‘I’m in trouble.’ He started to cry.
Solomon left him bawling on the filthy floor and followed Charlie’s directions. He turned down steps, listening to the odd sounds of men calling, shouting for a piss bucket, for a bitch, for a second chance.
The nunnery was down the last flight of dripping steps. It was the place where whores and female cozeners were locked up, in the bowels of the earth. Tonight there were no prisoners. A patch of orange light glowed in the distance. Solomon heard a voice.
‘Hello. Is that you, Martin, ye blackguard?’
‘Hello,’ Solomon called back. He sounded artificially cheery.
Out of the pitch black shadows a scrawny old man – wearing a faded red coat and filthy white waistcoat first issued to him forty years ago when he became a guard at the Black Dog – shuffled forward. He held a torch that dripped occasional blobs of flaming pitch onto the damp floor.
‘Who are you?’ the man barked, his gaunt face hollowed out by flames and shadows.
‘Solomon Fish. Are you Boxty?’
‘Could be.’ The old guard jutted his chin out, the fingers of his left hand tapping the sling that held his long musket draping from his left shoulder. ‘What’s it to ye?’
‘Jenny, the barmaid down in the Cock and Hen, told me to ask for you. Said you’d be in the know.’
The old man grunted. ‘Jenny has a mouth on her. You could drive a horse and four through her wide gob. I’ve nothing to say to you, now fuck off.’
‘So you are Boxty.’ Solomon drew out his notebook.
‘Get lost,’ Boxty hollered.
‘You don’t know what I’m looking for,’ Solomon protested.
‘Well, you’re not here to ask what I’d like to eat for me supper.’
‘It’s Olocher,’ Solomon said.
‘Course it is. Turn around a
nd go back out the door there.’
The index finger of his left hand flicked towards the steps.
Undaunted by Boxty’s abrupt behaviour, Solomon adopted another tack, tapped his pencil off the moleskin covering of his little notebook and officiously announced, ‘The Board just want a few things cleared up. Part of the official inquiry.’
Boxty’s grey eyes bulged and he jutted out his chin as he shook his head, denying everything.
‘The Board.’ He spat the word out, almost choking on it. ‘Fuck me, this is out of hand. Totally out of hand. That bastard Olocher is dead and look at all the shit he’s brought down on us. Even dead he’s still trouble. I’ve done nothin’.’ He pressed his lips, defiantly snapping out his innocence. ‘Do you hear me? Nothin’ but me job.’
Solomon stood expressionless. He flicked his notebook open. ‘Just go over the events of the evening.’
‘For what?’ Boxty said gruffly, walking to the iron holder fastened to the wall and slipping the torch into it. ‘So you can twist the facts and I can get kicked out on the street, stripped of me wages and pension.’
‘You were guarding him as normal,’ Solomon directed. ‘Doing the usual eve-of-execution stuff, seeing what he wanted for his last meal, asking if he would like to get anything off his chest, to see a priest.’
‘A priest!’ Boxty snorted, removing his gun and leaning it against the wall. ‘Him? I’ll tell you what I told Lord Beresford and Judge Coveny’ – he pointed at a red door that was slightly ajar – ‘and it’s not a word of a lie.’ He sucked on his teeth and sniffed. ‘I looked in.’
Solomon took two steps towards the red door.
‘This his cell?’ he interrupted.
‘Don’t go in there.’ Boxty stepped to block him. ‘It’s still covered in blood. Like I said I looked in. Olocher was sitting staring, so I moved away. Next thing I hear a thump and when I go and check, there he is on the floor, blood squirting from his neck. No knife in sight, no weapon, like his throat was sliced open by the devil himself.’
‘The Board are unconvinced.’ Solomon’s mouth was firm. He clamped his jaw and kept his gaze steady and unflinching.
‘Fuck them.’ Boxty waved the threat away. ‘What do they know?’
‘Someone gave Olocher a blade.’
‘Well, it weren’t me,’ Boxty squirmed.
‘Did you search him?’
‘Three times a day we patted him down, emptied out his pockets. This is a joke.’
Boxty dragged a low stool out of the shadows and sat hunched under the flickering torch.
‘Me and Martin were chatting,’ he said weakly.
‘Martin?’ Solomon scribbled down the name.
‘The other turnkey, Martin Coffey. He should be here. It’s after ten bells. He’ll vouch for me.’
‘Did Martin give him the blade?’
‘No he didn’t.’ Boxty looked away.
‘You looked in at Olocher. Olocher was staring. Where was Martin standing?’
‘There.’ Boxty waved vaguely. ‘I don’t know. Nearby. Look, you’ve no idea what we were dealing with.’
Boxty’s eyes filled with a timid light. He ran his fingers across his brow, brushing his thin grey fringe to one side.
‘He wasn’t the usual. Wasn’t normal.’ His voice trailed a moment and Solomon gave him time to gather his thoughts. ‘Down here, on yer own, guarding a man like that. It’d jangle any man’s nerves.’
‘What do you mean?’ Solomon softened his tone.
‘He didn’t talk once. Didn’t try to make friends, didn’t bargain or beg.’
‘Or bribe?’ Solomon interrupted.
‘Yeah, if you like.’ Boxty shrugged as though extortion was all in a day’s work when it came to pacifying prisoners. ‘He didn’t look for favours. I mean, Olocher, he took to the place like a worm takes to dead flesh. He burrowed in. Sat quietly, like he was drinking in the damp and the dark. Relishing the experience. I’ll tell you this much, down here at night on me own, listening to the rain drippin’ and not a sound from him, not a murmur . . . Got to the point where I’d be afraid to look in.’
Boxty seemed genuinely disturbed. His eyes darted to the farthest corners of the old cellar. He gripped his hands together, squeezing his fingers like he was trying to wring out his exposed fear. Solomon peered at the red door. A square of deep darkness cut by the bars in the window appeared to move and slither away from the light. A seam of oppressive blackness swelled, engorged along the door jamb. He pulled his eyes back to Boxty.
‘So, Olocher didn’t talk,’ he said flippantly. ‘That’s hardly frightening.’
Boxty shook his head, his white hands flipping open, revealing his wrinkled palms.
‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m forty years working here, forty years, and not once have I met anyone like him. Even with me gun I didn’t feel safe. There was something lurkin’ in his bones.’
Solomon looked back at the red door, it stood ominously still, bulging with a seething darkness that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He shook the chills away and pasted a fake smile onto his face.
‘Sounds a bit florid to me,’ he said.
Boxty shook his head, unconvinced. ‘You didn’t have to deal with him. And what he did to those girls. He was evil. Sure, Judge Coveny said it himself.’
‘That Olocher was evil?’ Solomon scribbled the judge’s name.
‘When he saw Olocher’s corpse spread out on the floor. He was poking at it with his cane and saying it was hard to think the man was dead.’
‘Why?’
‘Because there was something about Olocher that we all thought couldn’t be killed.’
Solomon smirked uncomfortably.
‘I can’t describe it.’ Boxty looked earnest now. His eyes narrowed as he tried to explain what he was feeling. ‘He was a danger when he was alive and here is his putrid spirit wreaking havoc now he’s dead. The man bled like a stuck pig, but look at it.’ Boxty extended his arm incredulously. ‘His rank energy can still reach out of the grave. Even dead he’s left a stink behind him.’
Solomon reached into his jacket pocket and produced a small bottle of whiskey, offering it to Boxty.
‘God bless ye, sir.’
‘It’ll please you to know he’s been cut open by eager medical students over in the College of Surgeons.’ Solomon’s brows rose a little.
Boxty took a deep, greedy glug.
‘That so?’ He dragged his hand over his moist lips and nodded approvingly. ‘That does please me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad he’s gone, but I didn’t kill him. Not me, not Martin. If truth be told I’d have been too afraid to do it.’
‘Did you get into a row with him?’ Solomon probed.
‘No, I did not. I told you I didn’t talk to the man and the man didn’t talk to no one but the devil.’
‘And you didn’t give him a knife and tell him to do us all a favour?’
‘He came up with that idea himself.’
‘And the knife?’
‘I don’t know,’ Boxty barked, tired of being grilled. ‘This is horseshit. If Martin was here he’d tell ya.’ Solomon nodded, unfazed by Boxty’s outburst.
‘I’ll have to interview this Martin Coffey, corroborate the facts.’
‘You do that,’ Boxty said truculently. ‘He’ll tell you the same.’
‘When does he start duty?’
‘Half an hour ago. He’s tardy. Wait a minute.’ Something in Boxty’s addled brain began to join the dots. He took a quick sip and leaned forward, resting his elbow on his left thigh. ‘What has Jenny got to do with you?’
‘Sorry?’ Solomon pretended to misunderstand.
‘Jenny over in the Cock and Hen. You said she sent you here.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well if she sent you here, what have you to do with the Board?’
Solomon didn’t miss a beat. He kept his pencil hovering over his notebook.
‘I’m a
collator of information. A kind of clerk. An accumulator of facts. Would you describe Olocher as squat and round-faced?’
‘Huh?’
‘Short with piggy eyes and ladies’ fingers? Would you say he was a nondescript man? Ordinary?’
‘I told you he’d curdle yer stomach to look at him. And what he did to that little one, Jo-Jo, poor little lass. He was unnatural.’
‘Yes. A preternatural fiend, you’ve said.’
‘He was oily.’
‘Oily?’
‘Had a slippery way. A sheen on his skin.’
‘Unctuous?’
Boxty didn’t give the whiskey back. He fondled the bottle, looking for a moment at the filthy straw gathered in damp clumps at his feet. ‘A quick death was too good for him. And I’ll tell you something else. I don’t like being down here on me own.’ He quickly scanned the thick blackness bulging against the red door. ‘I never used to care, but since Olocher . . .’ He shifted uncomfortably. ‘When you’ve been near to that kind of man, it’s like he left a trail in the shadows. Like he’s still skulkin’ about, slitherin’ in the dark somewhere.’
Solomon nodded sympathetically. ‘It’s gloomy down here,’ he agreed. ‘And thinking about what Olocher did and listening to the rain drip, it’d be hard not to let your imagination run away with you.’
‘Aye. I suppose.’
‘Anyway.’ Solomon pocketed his notebook, satisfied that he had got all the information he could. ‘I’ll clear your name with the Board.’
The Dolocher Page 8