The Dolocher

by Caroline Barry

  Merriment flecked the floor with soda, scrubbing the flags until a scarlet froth bubbled from the bristles of the brush.

  ‘They got him,’ she said firmly.

  ‘But check.’

  ‘Fine.’ Merriment flung the brush into the bucket and soaked her hands. She took a candle from the table, drew back the bolt and slowly pulled the door open.

  ‘The Answerer,’ Janey Mack whelped, and to appease the little girl Merriment unholstered the pistol.

  The candle flame flickered then straightened up, the pale finger of light dully illuminating the bloody threshold and shiny cobbles. Above the rooftops Merriment could hear the distant roar of men bellowing and calling and the eerie shriek of dying pigs wailing through the muffled fog. She held the candle high, looking about her, her heart beating loudly in her chest. The mist was thinning, not enough to let her survey the full courtyard but from what she could see the yard was empty, the network of back walls and slender pathways nothing more than grey suggestions in the poor light. The overlooking buildings were shrouded, the chimneys and rooftops blotted by the mist. Lone windows glowed softly where candles were placed on the sills.

  ‘Well?’ Janey Mack whispered, keeping well back.

  Merriment searched the cobbles by her feet.

  ‘I see nothing.’

  Janey Mack listened, her little mouth open, her eyelids anxiously pinned back.

  ‘They’re over on Copper Alley. Do ye hear them?’

  Merriment nodded, checking the ground. Blood congealed like slick oil in the runnels between the cobblestones, pooling in cracks and crevices, shining scarlet when the candle flame moved above it.

  ‘Might not have been him,’ Janey Mack said, tiptoeing a little closer, shivering as she peeped beyond Merriment out into the dark, thick mist. Merriment saw something silver glint in the grit not far from the ash pit and was squinting trying to distinguish if it was a shard of glass or a coin when the shadows to her right moved. She glanced over, the night air suddenly electrified by the gush of terror flushing through her veins as the candle flame picked out the black glistening spines of jagged bristles floating not six feet away from her. The candle flame dully illuminated a round twist of bony tusk, flatly highlighting the barest smear of dark, dripping snout. In the thick, deep, cloying air the obscure roundels of hollowed eye sockets pierced by ghoulish eyes glimmered a moment. Merriment stared deeply into the bright eyes, recognising a quality, a dark malevolence that shimmered with intent. A sinister knowingness emanated from the gaze. Instinctively, Merriment thrust the candle forward. The visage turned and receded into the folding shadows, vanishing at the same instant that Merriment let out a soft yelp, her heart surging forwards and back, her hands trembling and her knees giving way. She gripped the doorjamb and quickly sprang back inside, bolting the lock hurriedly.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I . . .’ Merriment rested her forehead on the door, hiding her face, collecting her wits, her pistol limp in her hand.

  ‘It’s starting to rain,’ she lied, clenching her jaw and wrestling with the waves of white terror softening her bones. She had seen it. Just like Solomon. She recalled its eyes and shivered, certain that she would never forget its malicious gaze. The Dolocher was out there, waiting in the shadows.

  ‘Let’s lock up.’

  She lit more candles.

  ‘We should,’ Janey Mack agreed.

  ‘Every room, every window.’ Merriment tried to flatten her voice, but she moved urgently, pulling open drawers and fetching nails and a hammer.

  ‘There’s a few planks outside,’ Janey Mack told her.

  ‘We’ll work with what we have.’ Merriment pointed to two lanterns. ‘Light those, Janey, and come with me.’

  The back door was secure. They nailed the shop shutters closed, and put an extra few nails sideways against the door frame to prevent the front door from opening so that if someone managed to pick the lock they would still have a hard time getting in. As they crept upstairs, the candlelight glinting off the yellow breasts of the little canaries trapped in ivy-bedecked cages, Janey Mack pointed to the door under the stairs.

  ‘What’s in there, miss?’

  ‘Rubbish.’ Merriment stared at the upper landing cautiously, her mind reeling. Could the Dolocher melt through brickwork? Was it waiting up there for her? She paused, her pupils wide, her face drained, her heart kicking at her chest. Was there something near her bedroom door? Janey Mack clutched at the back of Merriment’s waistcoat so petrified she couldn’t speak. Merriment took the stairs slowly, pausing with each step, letting the candlelight slowly fan into the darkness, inch by inch.

  Janey Mack was right: the Dolocher had followed Solomon home and now it was waiting. It was out there in the shadows, or in here . . . Her brain reeled. She could not deny what her own eyes had seen. A horrible tightness squeezed her chest – how do you fight a demon? Merriment handed the little girl the bag of nails and the second lantern and slowly drew out her pistol, clutching the hammer tight, ready to bludgeon with one hand and shoot with the other. If it lurched at them, Merriment would fight the only way she could. She had no faith to protect her, no prayers to defend herself with, only a pistol and a hammer.

  She crept another step closer, turning on the elbow of the stairs, her shadow elongating up onto the ceiling, the window to her left sparkling with reflected candlelight. The stairs creaked as she held her breath and glared into the shadows. Somehow every dull line, every dark form – the base of the chair in the landing, the top of the cupboard door, the door handle into Solomon’s room – all seemed threatening and unfamiliar. She took another step. Janey Mack lifted the lantern and looked behind her, squinting into the black pit of darkness at the bottom of the stairs, worried that something was crouching in the press underneath, waiting for them to pass before crawling out and slinking up after them to trap them in one room and corner them there.

  On the upper landing Merriment tucked the hammer into her waistband, twisted the handle into her bedroom and pushed the door open. The hinges creaked loudly, sending a long, slow moan into the darkness, groaning through the absolute silence like an alarm announcing their position. Merriment grabbed a lantern off Janey Mack and plunged her hand forward moving quickly into the room, hurriedly inspecting it. A dim grey light washed the windows, the mullions glowed a dull pink. There were people outside with torches, rushing quietly through the mist. The knowledge that there were people close by reassured Merriment.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she whispered, waving Janey Mack in.

  As they drew the shutters they saw two men across the way in the street below, standing tight together, their heads bowed, occasionally glancing around. They were laughing: their humour seemed oddly out of place. One man turned and stared over at the shop front, scanning the shuttered window and filling Merriment with a curious doubt. She’d seen him before. The little man who had skipped from the kerb to the road the morning the milkmaid had stopped to pour milk into the quart jug for the well-dressed man in the fancy blue jacket. The skipping man had a calculated stare and when another man joined the group and looked over at the shop too, glancing up at her window, Merriment instinctively stepped back.

  What did Dolly Shelbourne’s husband look like?

  ‘What is it?’ Janey Mack groaned. The men brazenly seemed to be surveying the shop. Were they going to set it on fire, like Janey Mack had warned? Were they going to attempt to break in? Someone whistled, a beckoning shrill note. All three men progressed down Fishamble Street, no longer interested in the flaming candle burning in the upstairs window of M. O’Grady’s apothecary shop. Merriment watched them saunter away, relieved but disturbed, her eyes drinking in as much detail as she could. The little man’s skittering walk, the colossus with the sunken eyes and sheepish expression, the man with the hard stare and angular face. She knew him. She’d met him. The man with the angular face had tried to feel her up that very afternoon. It was the Keeper of the Black Dog Prison. She leane
d against the glass watching the Keeper and his companions meet another two men. One pushed a barrow load of pig corpses. The Keeper pointed towards the quays and Merriment observed them as they all headed down towards the river and vanished around a corner, leaving her with a deep sense of unease.

  ‘Who is it?’ Janey Mack squeezed her nose to the window pane, squinting over the rooftops.

  ‘No one. Come on,’ Merriment pulled three nails from her pockets and began nailing the shutters closed. Tucking the hammer into her waistband again, she made for Solomon’s room.

  What if it’s in here, waiting? It took everything she had to push the door open and stride in.

  ‘You keep your eye on the stairs.’

  Janey Mack did as she was told, her huge eyes wide and barely blinking. She kept her back to the doorjamb and rested her lantern on the floor by her feet. As Merriment closed the shutters she saw two men coming out of the mist, one of them carrying a torch, the other dragging the pink corpse of a dead pig. The pig’s head lolled from side to side, its large tongue dangling from its jaws. Its side was slashed open and its entrails bubbled from the gaping wound. The man dragged the dead animal by its front legs, leaving a streak of bright red on the shining cobbles. He stopped a moment to mop his brow, obviously exhausted from the exercise, and swiped his handkerchief over his unshaven face. His eyes darted a moment up to the window where Merriment looked down. They shared a glance before Merriment closed the last shuttered panel, slipped the bar across the hinges and began nailing the window shut.

  ‘What about that room?’ Janey Mack whispered, pointing at the third door. Merriment thought of the hole in the roof. An image of a winged demon plunging feet first through the exposed rafters made her shudder. She ran back into her room, pulled out a drawer and without hesitating smashed out the bottom and broke the sides. Using the planks, she hammered them across the third doorway and when she had finished, she stood back and stared at the uneven barrier. She felt helpless. It wouldn’t be strong enough. How could a demon be stopped by a hammer and nails? She looked at the flimsy deterrent and then down at Janey Mack’s snow-white face; the little girl was petrified.

  ‘There we are,’ Merriment said firmly, disguising her fear. ‘Now let’s go downstairs and make some hot milk and cinnamon.’

  As they sipped their milk, Janey Mack chattered.

  ‘The widow Byrne is stout and has eyes like winkles,’ Janey Mack said. ‘And she moves like she’s gliding. Her wig was too big and her friend Misses Johnston says that the woman on Aungier Street who keeps a tea shop was robbed and a full ten pounds was stolen from her.’

  Merriment nodded.

  ‘She said the city is gone to wrack and ruin and that after midnight the night watch should be multiplied by twenty. The night watch on her street gets drunk and abusive and hides in his hut muttering profanities, that’s what the widow Byrne says.’

  Janey Mack put her cup on the table and took the poker to rattle the ashes and throw two more logs on the fire. She lay down by the hearth and, lulled by the sweet milk and warmed by the fire, she fell asleep. Merriment looked at the chimney breast and listened. The world was deathly quiet. She slipped her fingers around the butt end of her pistol and kept a vigil over Janey Mack, suddenly and irrationally wishing with all her heart that Solomon Fish would stay away and never come back.

  18

  The Vanishing

  Solomon Fish was dropped off at Harold’s Cross and walked from there into town. He followed a line of dairymaids escorting their cows into the metropolis. There were women carrying baskets of eggs, others heaving bushels of birch, and men with carts transporting everything from cabbages to turf. The sun was pink in the morning sky and the air was biting cold. Solomon was glad of his new cloak; he tugged the collar tight and sighed, his breath forming a white cloud when he exhaled. The traffic heading up Patrick’s Street was thick and slow moving. He weaved through the crowd, hurrying up the steep incline towards Christ Church Cathedral, surprised to have finished up Maggie’s business so early. She had left no bills unpaid – her china had been divided along with her other meagre possessions after the funeral – so all he had to do first thing was sign off on her tenancy agreement and that had taken all of two minutes. He hitched a ride into Dublin with the blacksmith and was just turning onto Castle Street when the cathedral bells rang seven times.

  Over near the gates of Christchurch market a throng had encircled a horse and cart with two rough-looking men perched in the driver’s seat. One of the men hopped down, his large face burnt raw by the cold morning air. He scratched beneath his periwig and tugged on the belt pinching his belly, gesticulating wildly at his companion and calling him down to look into the gutter. Solomon Fish paused. Emblazoned on the side of their cart was the House of Aldermen coat of arms and their light-blue coats trimmed with pewter buttons identified the men as bailiffs.

  ‘Sol, over here.’

  Waving from behind the black railings surrounding the cathedral was Gloria. She stood on the butt of stone supporting the iron fence, tugged off her cap and fluttered it in the air to signal to Solomon to come on over. He dodged the horses trotting past and weaved through the line of carriages that had pulled up outside the market.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Solomon asked.

  ‘The devil’s been here and gone.’ Gloria flattened her cap back onto her head and shrugged her shawl tight. Her usually jovial face was pasty pale and her eyes were troubled. She glanced furtively to her left and right.

  ‘Ye heard what happened last night?’

  Solomon shook his head. ‘I was away.’

  ‘They killed all the pigs in the city. Jesus, Sol, the screaming. Must have been how the massacre of the innocents sounded when Herod issued the order to slaughter. It was savage, so it was. Where were you?’

  ‘Burying the last woman the Dolocher murdered.’

  Gloria blessed herself, shook her head and tutted.

  ‘And Corker says ye saw him.’

  Solomon nodded gravely.

  ‘Mother of God, Sol, what’s going to happen to us all?’

  Solomon took a long deep breath, quashing the memory of the Dolocher peering down at him from the gloom. Even in broad daylight he could not stop his heart racing at the recollection. His eyes naturally drifted up to the gargoyles poking from the cornice of the cathedral roof.

  ‘Did he say anything to ya?’ Gloria licked her lips, clenching her shawl tight over her chest.

  Solomon shook his head.

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘A black pig. Long snout. Bristles. The shoulders of a man. Maybe. Hands. I think . . . No eyes.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Gloria gasped as Solomon realised he had not recalled that detail before. The Dolocher was sightless. Blind. Yet somehow could see.

  ‘They thought they got him last night.’ Gloria nodded frantically. ‘Now there’s trouble this morning.’

  Solomon saw one woman crying, sobbing into her husband’s shoulder as the man guided her away.

  ‘But what will we eat? How will we pay for the loss?’ the weeping woman complained bitterly.

  Gloria leaned in and clutched the wrought-iron railing with one hand.

  ‘It’s a godawful thing, this business,’ she hissed, her plump face hardening as her eyes darted to the two men inspecting the ground close by.

  ‘There was a stack of pigs left on the corner there last night. Blood running into the gutter, the whole street was red and stinking with blood. And then the bailiffs’ – Gloria pointed – ‘came this morning to pick up the carcasses, only they were gone.’

  Solomon looked at the empty bailiffs’ wagon and at the empty gutter.

  ‘Gone?’ he asked, confused.

  Gloria’s dry lips parted, her left hand flicked open. ‘They’ve vanished,’ she whispered. Her face was grey now, drained of colour, her eyes frantically flicking in all directions. ‘There’s not one dead pig to be found out of the six hundred butchered last night. Not a
single beast to be seen. It’s horrific, isn’t it, Sol? What are we goin’ to do now? That’s what I’d like to know.’

  Solomon stared at the bemused bailiffs. They walked about following one long trail of blood after another, listening as individuals from the crowd told them that the Dolocher had dragged the corpses with it to hell. Corker emerged from the throng, his big brown eyes popping in his pale face when he saw Solomon.

  ‘Y’er back,’ he yelled, running over.

  ‘Jesus, Corker, it’s awful, isn’t it?’ Gloria clutched at her shawl, fastening it tight about her throat. ‘The whole place is cursed.’

  ‘There ye are, Gloria.’ Corker tugged at his forelock. ‘Did ye steal the pigs to make yer pies?’

  ‘I did not.’ Gloria pursed her lips She was in no humour for jibes.

  ‘That’d be right,’ Corker grinned. ‘Sure, there’s no meat in yer wares. Ye heard of blind stew, that’s what she cooks, pies with a suggestion of meat juice.’

  ‘Y’er looking for a clip around the ear,’ Gloria grumbled. ‘You go ask the bailiff there what happened to the pigs? Did the Dolocher die among them and whip them off to hell with him, or did he outwit the lot that were after him and come back and spirit the corpses away with him just to show how powerful he is?’

  ‘Jody Maguire took them to roast on a spit,’ Corker said. He shoved his hands into his pockets and whispered up at Solomon. ‘There’s a meeting in the civic offices at ten. There’s murder over this. Someone stole the lot; the aldermen and sheriffs will be skinned alive. I’m telling ye the city manager will be boiled in oil for mismanaging the whole thing.’

  Solomon nodded bleakly. ‘Right,’ he muttered. He nodded goodbye to Gloria, and with Corker accompanying him he headed in the direction of Fishamble Street.

  ‘Y’er back early,’ Corker grinned.

  ‘Miss me?’

  ‘A bit.’ Corker shrugged. ‘I wasn’t sure ye’d be back.’

  ‘I see.’

  Solomon stepped to one side allowing two ladies to pass and noticed the hems of their skirts were stained with crimson. In the gutter, thin red spatter marks of blood coalesced into a steady stream flowing from a thick broad spread of purple-black, the obvious site of a killing. The footpath was stained with dark red patches and drag marks. Globs of shimmering scarlet glistened like veins on the grey pavement. Solomon trod carefully, stepping over the gory remains of the previous night’s culling.