The Dolocher

by Caroline Barry

  ‘By Christ, you’re a sight for a sore eye.’

  His eyepatch cut across his distinguished face, and Merriment couldn’t help but respond to his warmth. He seemed genuinely pleased to see her and comforted by that small fact at least, Merriment found her feet.

  *

  While Merriment checked the girls working for Peg Leeson, Solomon Fish taught Janey Mack how to write the letters J and M.

  ‘Now you have your initials.’

  ‘Will this hand forget tomorrow what it learned today?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ye sure?’

  ‘It’s like falling off a chair. Once you’ve done it once, you know how to do it again.’

  The wind rattled the back door and Solomon asked what was outside.

  ‘A yard. There’s a way into the back, halfway down the street, a little alley; ye have to cut through a pigsty, though, and, sure, the swill and the swine would destroy yer buckled shoes.’

  Janey Mack slipped from Solomon’s lap and taking the poker she rattled the cinders and flung another log on the fire.

  ‘Did ye ever marry, Sol?’

  Janey Mack sat on the fender checking out Solomon’s injured face. The bandages hid his expression.

  ‘No.’

  She pointed to the little oval portrait standing on the shelf across the room.

  ‘That’s the lad Merriment murdered.’

  ‘Is it? I thought she didn’t kill him.’

  Janey Mack shrugged. ‘She could be on the run. She’s not here long. Three months at most.’

  ‘How long are you here?’

  ‘Two days.’

  ‘Oh.’ Solomon had taken it for granted that Janey Mack had been assisting Merriment for a lot longer.

  ‘I never seen a ghost.’ Janey Mack stared into the fire. Then turning her huge eyes on Solomon, she said, ‘What if the Dolocher came up this street here?’

  Solomon shook his head, his face hurt. ‘He haunts the Black Dog: that’s where his demon spirit is trapped, inside the grey dark walls of the notorious prison. That place is his tomb, his sarcophagus, a mausoleum encasing . . . Actually,’ Solomon jotted a quick note, ‘I like that.’ Then looking at Janey Mack’s troubled face, he called her over.

  ‘He’s not real, Janey.’ Solomon winked, his upper eyelid crashing down on his lower, sending a shooting pain through his jaw. ‘It’s just a good story.’

  ‘But how do ye explain all the things?’ Janey Mack wanted to know.

  ‘Prison fever.’ Solomon tried to smile, his whole head ached. ‘You can’t let truth get in the way of a cracking good tale. It’s a story. Now you don’t be worrying yourself about it. This week it’s the Dolocher, next week it’ll be a phantasm over in the hospital or a spectral ship out at sea or a headless horseman.’

  ‘But yer man’s guts were at the bottom of a bucket, ye saw that yerself with yer own eyes.’

  ‘Yes well,’ Solomon sighed. ‘It’s an intriguing story, but a story nonetheless. Now, will I show you how to write Merriment’s initials?’

  Janey Mack struggled with the letter G, while Solomon gazed into the fire remembering the anchor on Merriment’s neck and the feel of her fingers stroking the edges of his eyes. Suddenly a knock came on the back door.

  ‘Jesus.’ Janey Mack pounced to her feet, running to grab the poker. ‘Who’s that?’ she whispered frantically, staring at Solomon.

  ‘Hello,’ Solomon called, his heart pounding despite himself.

  ‘It’s Corker, Sol, let us in.’

  Solomon dragged back the latch and pulled open the door. Corker stepped into the warmth, a gush of wind bursting in with him. His quick eyes swept across the interior, resting a second on Janey Mack’s face. They each recognised a faint feral streak in the other which made them instantly suspicious and competitive.

  ‘How do you do.’ Janey Mack took the lead.

  ‘Miss.’ Corker tugged his forelock.

  Solomon shut out the wind and looked down at Corker’s filthy feet.

  ‘Stand in by the fire. This is Janey. This is Corker.’ Solomon swept his hand back and forth, bouncing the introduction along. ‘Is everything all right?’

  Corker shook his head.

  ‘Got a bit of information for ye. Ye’re going to want to hear this, Sol.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  Corker paused, shoved his hands into his breeches pockets and licked his bottom lip.

  ‘One shillin’.’

  ‘Not a chance,’ Solomon laughed.

  ‘It’s worth twice the price. It’s to do with the Dolocher and I’ve a place to send ye and someone to interview.’

  ‘Did the Dolocher cough up the bones of the missin’ turnkey?’ Janey Mack asked.

  ‘Worse,’ Corker said, crinkling the bridge of his nose. ‘He’s out of the Black Dog and prowlin’ the streets of Dublin.’

  ‘What?’ Janey Mack swallowed, her face suddenly pale. She turned to Solomon. ‘But you said about his sarcophagus. You said he wasn’t real!’ She squeezed her right hand into a fist, opening and closing it, her heart thumping loudly in her chest.

  Solomon threw Corker a shilling and sat down, listening intently.

  ‘Florence Wells is a weaver. Lives down the Liberties. She was over visiting her sister-in-law in Copper Alley. On her way back she took a short cut down Saint John’s Lane. She said she was halfway down the lane when she got this peculiar feelin’ that there was somethin’ behind her. She looked back.’

  Corker looked over his own shoulder, and Janey Mack gave a little whimper, hiding her mouth behind her bandaged hand.

  ‘She saw nothing.’ Corker held his hands out and froze. ‘She took no more than three steps forward when out of the shadows, running at her, with this massive head and black cloak came this beast.’

  ‘Oh Janey.’ Janey Mack squashed herself close to Solomon and clutched his hand, barely able to breathe. Corker looked a little shaken. He brushed his tongue swiftly over his lower lip and glanced into the corner of the room.

  ‘She said it all happened in a flash. She dropped her lantern, but not before she saw the light bounce off a black pig’s head. It lunged at her laughing and she ran, but he grabbed her cloak and swiped at her face. She slithered and screamed and kicked and managed to wriggle free and off she took, like the hounds of hell, belting away with the sound of the Dolocher pounding after her.’

  Janey Mack gave a little squeal. Solomon swept his arm about her, drawing her protectively into his chest.

  ‘Where is Florence now?’ he asked.

  Corker nodded seriously. ‘She came screaming into the Liberties like a banshee. Her neighbours took her in. She’s in O’Dwyer’s cottage. They’re pouring whiskey down her throat she’s that hysterical with the fright.’

  ‘Right.’ Solomon stood up.

  ‘Where are ye going?’ Janey Mack clung to his arm.

  He’d forgotten he was babysitting. He sank back down and sat the little girl on his knee. Janey Mack was trembling like a leaf.

  ‘Damned interesting story,’ he said.

  ‘Thought it would intrigue ye.’ Corker eyed the crusts of bread left on one of the plates. Solomon pulled out his notebook and took a few quick notes.

  ‘When did it happen?’

  ‘Only about half an hour ago. They’ve sent for a doctor.’

  Janey Mack heard the key turn in the shop door. She hopped from Solomon’s knee and ran to the end of the table, waiting for the door to the anteroom to open. When Merriment came in she was stunned to find Janey Mack in a panic and a young boy standing, warming his feet by the fire.

  ‘He’s out of the Black Dog, miss,’ Janey Mack babbled, tears popping in her frightened eyes. ‘Haunting Hell.’ She pointed towards Christ Church Cathedral. ‘He’s got the guards and now he’s back to catch women.’

  ‘Who has? What’s going on?’ Merriment swung off her cloak and put her bag on the table. Solomon grabbed a lantern off a shelf and lit it.

  ‘I’ve t
o head. There’s been a development. Janey will fill you in.’

  Before she could say wait, Solomon and Corker were out the door and picking their way through the backyards, past a rubbish pile and a pigsty, making for O’Dwyer’s cottage, where Florence Wells was shaking and rocking and telling her story.

  Janey Mack was in such a panic that Merriment gave her a few drops of distilled Star of Bethlehem oil and heated a cup of hot milk for her. Still, the little girl chattered.

  ‘When she looked up, there was the Dolocher, with his pig’s head and his evil laugh and he took a swipe at her, meaning to drag her back to the grave with him. But yer woman, Florence, fought him off and took to her heels.’

  ‘There now, you see. He can’t be fleet of foot.’ Merriment poured herself a little milk and sat sipping it, watching Janey Mack hunched over on the little three-legged stool, staring into the fire.

  ‘The Dolocher?’ The bridge of Janey Mack’s nose pinched into a frown.

  ‘He didn’t catch her.’ Merriment smiled reassuringly. ‘Besides, we don’t know anything about Florence Whatever-her-name-is, she may be sick.’

  ‘Sick to the stomach after what happened. The thing about spirits is they can creep in, miss, they can drift under the doorjamb and slip through keyholes and Olocher was a bad one. Solomon said the Dolocher wasn’t real, but he changed his mind after what Corker told him. What if he comes here, down the chimney, looking for me?’

  ‘Why would he be looking for you?’ Merriment’s head retracted, confused.

  ‘Dunno. Bad spirits are slithery things, miss. Hoppy John said when he was lying on deck the day his leg was swiped off him, he saw men dying and when they died their spirits came out of their bones. Hoppy John said they looked agitated, very displeased. They could walk through walls, miss. And he said they were bad when they were alive, but they were cursed awful once they were dead.’

  ‘Hoppy John was telling sea tales.’

  ‘But we’re not safe, miss.’ Janey Mack scanned all the places the Dolocher could gain entry.

  ‘Look.’ Merriment stretched and reached up the side of the chimney breast, her fingers tugged at a loose brick. She pulled it out, and Janey Mack came to her feet, wondering why Merriment was tearing the chimney breast apart. Was she showing another way for the Dolocher to get in?

  ‘What is it?’ Janey Mack’s bandaged hand touched her lips, petrified.

  Merriment removed two bricks and reached into the dark gap. She hauled out something that crinkled and whispered like rain hissing. It was tissue paper and Janey Mack in all her terror thought it was a dead, white ghost. She stepped back, watching Merriment pull out a bundle and gently lay it on the table.

  ‘Now,’ Merriment said, ‘ghosts and spirits wander because they are disorientated.’ She did her best to sound authoritative; she needed to convince the little girl that what she was saying was true or Janey Mack would be up the whole night, too terrified to sleep and making herself sick with worry.

  ‘Their spirit eyes don’t see the way we do,’ she went on. ‘They feel things, get attracted to things.’

  Janey Mack nodded, her huge eyes unblinking, staring at Merriment’s hands as she unwrapped the tissue and pulled out a baby’s hat, a little pair of knitted booties and a dress.

  Janey Mack reached for the soft pale material and whispered, ‘What does it mean, miss?’

  Merriment looked back at the hole in the chimney breast.

  ‘It’s a magnet. It’s called a “hiding well”. It’s a trap. Any spirit that comes looking for souls to steal will be drawn to this hidden stash and leave us alone. It’s an old folk mechanism for keeping rambling spirits occupied.’

  Janey Mack nodded, but years of scavenging had trained her to make certain she was missing nothing.

  ‘It will hardly satisfy Olocher, who killed all those girls,’ she said breathlessly.

  ‘His spirit, if it is abroad, will be confused.’

  ‘He’s out there.’ Janey Mack pointed. ‘Ask Florence Wells.’

  ‘We don’t know anything about that woman: her mind may never have been sound and she could be looking for attention or have such a wild imagination that she may have convinced herself that she saw what she saw. The point is’ – Merriment folded away the baby clothes and returned them to the hiding well – ‘this is a perfectly tried-and-tested way of protecting a household.’

  Janey Mack nodded, satisfied. This was the first time she’d lived in a house, and while the security measure was new to her, she could see that the stones in the chimney breast were loose for some reason and she trusted the folk methods, since they had been tested by people who lived in the past and somehow that gave the hiding well veracity.

  ‘Ye sure?’ she asked.

  Merriment patted the little girl’s head and let her crawl up onto her knees. They sat by the fire. Janey Mack curled in Merriment’s lap, her head resting on Merriment’s breast. When the night watch called out that it was eleven bells, Merriment took Janey Mack upstairs and laid her on the cushions before the fire. She stoked the ashes and put another log on the dying embers, left the candle on her dressing table and tip-toed downstairs to sit and read.

  She was dozing in her chair when two sharp raps came to the back door.

  ‘Yes?’ she whispered hoarsely, her heart jumping.

  ‘Merri, it’s me. Solomon.’

  Merriment let him in. He was drowned, the rain was coming down strong and the lantern had fizzled out. He pushed into the anteroom shaking, his bandages half undone.

  ‘My God, get your coat off, you’re soaked through.’ Merriment found him a towel to dry himself with. Solomon shivered, his teeth chattering. He grabbed the dangling bandage and unwrapped his head, flinging the wet linen strip onto the table.

  ‘Thank you for letting me in. Sorry I missed curfew, extraordinary circumstances.’

  ‘Yes, I know. How’s the lady?’

  Merriment fetched a decanter of brandy and poured Solomon a stiff drink and a small one for herself.

  ‘I don’t think she’s the full shilling.’ Solomon took the brandy, gratefully. ‘I just can’t decide if she’s unhinged because she got an awful fright or if she was unhinged and frightened herself.’

  With the wooden splint like a false nose and his eyes black and his upper lip cut, Solomon looked like a masked man, like something from a medieval painting. He slipped out of his shoes, his socks soaking, steam evaporating from the back of his mud-spattered breeches.

  ‘It’s a cracking story,’ he grinned. ‘I mean, a demon. The details are just fantastic. Lumps of rotting flesh. Florence said her hand slid along the Dolocher’s chest and his flesh was cold and clammy and slippery to touch and that he stank like a corpse.’

  His eyes flicked to Merriment’s face. She was sitting cross-legged, the brandy glistening in her glass, one hand draped across her lap. He thought about the tattoo. She appeared to wince for a moment.

  ‘You think I’m grotesque?’ he said quietly.

  ‘I didn’t say a thing.’ Merriment gave a slight smile.

  ‘You don’t need to. You’ve very piercing eyes.’

  Solomon sipped his drink, the warm liquid making a hot channel to his belly.

  ‘And you’d be right,’ he sighed. ‘My principles are grubbily concerned with profit.’

  ‘We all need to eat, Solomon.’

  Merriment raised her brows and waited.

  ‘Thank you.’ Solomon rolled back onto his heels, straightening up. ‘You could have lectured me.’

  ‘Hardly. When I profit on the poor health of others.’

  ‘You heal and mend and provide comfort.’

  Merriment laughed, her whole face suddenly youthful and alive.

  ‘You mightn’t say that if you had to take mercury drops for an ailment. Besides, you provide entertainment.’

  ‘And moral corruption.’

  The unexpected remark sent Merriment back into her chair.

  ‘Good lord,’ she ex
claimed. ‘There’s a high-minded, self-righteousness living deep in your bosom. Who’d have thought?’

  Solomon grinned sheepishly, staring down into his glass.

  ‘Only comes out when I’m tired. I did consider the church as a profession once.’

  ‘Really?’ That made Merriment smile.

  ‘And law,’ he reminded her. ‘I’ve fallen far from my aspirations.’

  ‘Haven’t we all. Life has a neat way of trimming us back. But you know what they say – our character is formed in adversity and spoiled by indulgence.’

  ‘That’s a very puritanical idea.’ Solomon frowned. ‘I don’t like to suffer.’

  ‘None of us do, but it’s probably not as bad for us as we think.’ Merriment stretched out her legs and let her head rest on the back of her chair.

  ‘No.’ Solomon shook his head and finished his drink. ‘There I think you are wrong. Suffering makes people savage, drives them to despair and cruelty, makes them irresponsible.’

  Merriment looked at Solomon’s profile: his jaw had hardened. ‘Like Olocher?’ she asked.

  ‘Olocher? You think despair made him murder? That he suffered? No. He was something else altogether. Everything about that man, all that I have been told, what he did: he was born with something dark living inside him. That kind of appetite is not manufactured by neglect and hardship. No, Olocher was an animal.’

  ‘Funny, I heard he was an inconspicuous little man with a pudgy face and beady eyes.’

  ‘Born with an urge to abduct and murder. I mean, six girls.’

  Solomon thought of Olocher’s corpse lying on the surgeon’s table, remembering the waxy white fingers draped by the dead man’s side. He thought of what those hands had done.

  ‘It’s the old argument.’ Merriment pulled the book she’d been reading out from her side where it had slipped and placed it on her lap. Solomon read the words Boyle and Chemyst.

  ‘What argument?’ Solomon asked.

  ‘Nature or nurture? You think Olocher was born that way. I think . . .’

  ‘You think suffering distorted him until everything that was human about him was driven out?’

  ‘No.’

  Merriment’s answer confounded Solomon.

  ‘Neither nature or nurture drove him to kill those girls. Something more tricky was operating.’ She gazed into the fire. ‘Anyway, the man is dead and that’s a good thing.’