The Dolocher

by Caroline Barry

  The night watch was called over.

  ‘This fella knows the deceased.’

  The night watch was a crotchety octogenarian with poor hearing. He carried an elaborate horn and held it to his ear.

  ‘In all me years,’ he moaned, ‘I never seen the like. A young lad fell in the pit once. We got him out in a flash but he died of the fumes and foul water. Me job is to lock the gates and make sure no one steals the tans. The better skins are locked in there.’

  He pointed to a large bolted shed secured by an enormous lock.

  ‘I have worked here nigh on forty years and never had no trouble.’ The night watch waved his enormous conch-like hearing implement at the sky. Used to being deaf, he took full advantage of his ailment and kept talking, regardless of the others.

  ‘I came out to piss into the pit when what do I see but a floating bulge. At first I thought it was a sack of meal, can’t say why, just came to me that that was what it was, and then I sees the neck and ear and I thinks to meself, well, Cyril, I thinks, this is trouble and I ran and fetched the beadles.’

  The night watch looked down at Jessop’s dead features and shook his head.

  ‘Never seen him before. He never worked here. Never called into the yard.’

  ‘This fellow knows him,’ said the man who had fetched the grappling hook.

  ‘Do ye?’ The night watch stuck the horn into his ear.

  Solomon shouted into the hearing implement, aware of the faintly comic absurdity of standing in the rain besmirched with splashes of excrement and choking in the overpowering air.

  ‘He was a consort of Mister Hawkins,’ Solomon roared, thinking of Jessop’s fat wife weeping into her gin in the Cock and Hen. She had been right to be worried.

  ‘Fine death for him, so,’ the night watch declared, removing his hearing aid to take full charge of the conversation again. ‘Ye don’t think,’ he said, scowling, his thick bushy brows rushing to meet the bridge of his nose, ‘it couldn’t be that the Dolocher is back, could it? If something jumped from Olocher to Hawkins on the night he died, couldn’t something jump from Hawkins to someone else?’

  ‘The Dolocher wasn’t a demon,’ Solomon said, but the night watch was developing his own theory.

  Solomon glanced at Jessop’s foul corpse, took a few notes then surreptitiously cocked his head at Corker and they both slipped away to the edge of the pit while a few men drifted into the courtyard to take a look at Jessop lying dead in the rain.

  ‘Let’s take a look around,’ he whispered. Corker managed to filch a lantern and followed him up a narrow flight of stairs into a long musty corridor. Most of the doors were locked; those that were open led into pokey offices and cluttered storerooms.

  ‘What are ye lookin’ for?’ Corker asked, following Solomon back down into the yard and over to a ramshackle cluster of makeshift sheds.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Solomon pushed in one door, swung the lantern high and stopped in his tracks, the blood draining from his face, his hands shaking. He gasped as he recognised the ornate sleeves and nipped waist of a blue jacket. He stood gazing at Pearly, who seemed to float out of the musty gloom, the lantern light picking out odd details, little flashes of yellow glittering on the sleeves, the buttons, the tips of his shoes. Pearly’s body dangled gruesomely inches off the floor. He had been strung up so that the ground was tantalisingly close to his feet. His face was swollen and purple and contorted into a bizarre expression as his lips curled away from his perfect smile, exposing his neat white row of teeth. His eyes were bloodshot and bulged out over his grotesque grin. Someone had slashed his belly, so that as he swung he bled; his breeches and boots were saturated in blood, and chits and receipts and torn pages from his notebook floated in the crimson pool that oozed thickly over the dirt floor.

  ‘Christ.’ Corker staggered back and catching hold of Solomon’s arm held himself upright as his knees buckled.

  Solomon swallowed and reached up to gingerly touch Pearly’s swollen face, wincing with disgust that his first thought was that perhaps now he would be free of his debts.

  ‘Still warm,’ he muttered.

  Corker pointed back out into the tannery yard. ‘Did the lad in the pit string this fella up?’ he wondered, the curiosity of touching a corpse getting the better of him as he glanced his fingertips over the dead man’s knuckles. ‘Look,’ he whispered, pointing at down at a floating page, ‘that says Merriment’s shop, doesn’t it?’

  Solomon stared at the line of figures and quickly understood that Pearly had been watching Merriment’s shop, totting up guessed earnings.

  ‘He meant to rob her,’ Solomon whispered.

  ‘Did he?’ Corker gasped as Solomon took the lantern and moved deeper into the partitioned shed. Corker whispered fearfully, ‘Where are you going?’ Solomon didn’t answer, he just moved forward, holding the lantern high and examining all around him. The shed was crammed with pallets and old tools and was partitioned by haphazard oddments, nailed-together doors, old packing boxes and barrels stacked high, torn skins, mottled and patchy and of little or no value. The atmosphere was rank, thick with dust and foul smells. The interior was pitch dark, the lantern’s feeble light barely penetrating six feet around.

  A long sheet of tarpaulin hung like a screen from one of the rafters. Hidden behind it was a tiny stove with a pot still bubbling on the dying embers. To one side of the stove was a tattered mattress covered with filthy blankets, and stuffed into a set of broken shelves was a bag.

  ‘Someone was hiding out here.’ Corker peeked into the cooking pot and saw potatoes split and boiled to mush. ‘Someone was cookin’ their dinner.’ Solomon tugged out the bag and rifled through it. He drew out a small shirt and a crumpled cap and immediately thought of Fred’s wizened face.

  ‘Fred and Jessop were holed up here.’ Solomon sat on the edge of the makeshift bed.

  ‘D’ye think so?’ Corker paused.

  Solomon looked at the hat in his hand and sucked a moment on his lower lip.

  ‘The man in the blue jacket hanging from the rafters was a bully who worked for Billy Knox. Did you ever hear of him?’

  Corker nodded mutely, tugging a moment at his cowlick and swallowing back his anxiety.

  ‘How do you know them?’ he asked, but Solomon didn’t answer. He sat frowning, his heart thumping in his chest, all his thoughts converging on one point: anyone who had worked for Hawkins and who may have double-crossed or plotted against Billy Knox was being murdered.

  Solomon shoved the hat back into the bag. ‘I think there is a new boss in town.’

  He stood up and sighed, looking at the filthy mattress. A dark thought pierced his mind, luminescent, sudden and half formed, as the memory of Hawkins lurching forward in the dock screaming ‘I am innocent’ cut through Solomon’s certainty and left him feeling utterly doubtful. What if Billy Knox had known Hawkins had been using his men? What if Hawkins had been telling the truth? What if he had been stitched up? The clashing times in the witness statements now rang with an accusatory clarity. A cold chill rushed through Solomon’s body, a tight pressure squeezed around his heart. What if Billy Knox had manufactured the Dolocher? Solomon’s thoughts spun, recalling the curiously vacant glint and hardened cruelty of Billy Knox’s stare. He thought of the chits of paper floating in Pearly’s blood. He thought of Merriment’s face.

  ‘Do ye think this Fred fella is dead somewhere here?’ Corker asked him, as he prised open the lid of a battered tin he’d found stuffed under the mattress.

  ‘Could be.’ Solomon licked his dry lips anxiously. ‘Listen, we have to go.’

  Corker looked into the tin and almost keeled over backwards. A sheaf of curled pound notes had been stuffed into the faded tea canister.

  ‘Mother of God,’ he howled. ‘There must be twenty pounds here.’

  Solomon counted the money.

  ‘There’s no way anyone would leave this behind.’ He frowned, looking up at the rafters, his heart stopping in his throat. There
, floating, suspended in the gloom, was a face. A narrow, wizened face, unshaven and twitching, washed over by shadows and barely discernible in the paltry candlelight. A creamy smear of angles with flashing eyes that jolted as soon as Solomon looked up. The face desperately scrambled backwards, trying to conceal itself in the shadows. Dust and specks of earth and plaster crumbled to the floor.

  ‘What is it?’ Corker reached for a lump of wood and watched, shocked, as Solomon dropped the money, fetched a broom handle and bellowed up into the roof, poking at the rafters, ‘Get down, Fred. I’ve seen you, for Christ’s sake.’

  Fred squealed and fell to the ground with a thud, rolling up onto his feet and crouching with his arms extended and a pistol in one hand.

  ‘He’s here.’ He trembled, his voice screeching pitifully, his eyes popping wildly as he spun searching the shadows. ‘Gone mad. He’s taken to it, all the killing, all the killing. Ye have to help me.’

  ‘Who’s here?’ Solomon demanded, grabbing a stray bar that had been leaning on a broken chair. He glanced behind him, terrified that Billy Knox was crouching in the gloom.

  Fred spun in a frantic circle, his body jerking with spasmodic shocks, his eyes darting.

  ‘Please,’ Fred hissed. ‘He’s going to kill me.’ He froze. ‘Did ye hear that?’

  Corker receded. The tarpaulin lifted. Fred squealed, rushing away, knocking over a barrel, quenching the lantern. He staggered, reeled round and fired his pistol. The crack of the discharge snapped loud and hard.

  Corker flinched and wailed, falling backwards. Solomon lurched forward, scrabbling in the gloom, calling Corker’s name. The cinders from the fire cast the barest orange glow. A huge form crept out of the shadows. A black swine’s snout glimmered a moment. Fred howled, thrashing frantically, desperate to escape. Solomon’s ears thrummed, his heart pounded. He saw the blackness move. The outline of a large pig’s skull. He heard a visceral squelch. Fred’s voice suddenly vanished. There was a dull thud. A crash. Fred had been asphyxiated.

  Silence.

  Solomon searched the darkness.

  Nothing.

  ‘Corker?’ he hissed urgently, stumbling in the direction he had seen Corker fall.

  Outside he could hear a hue and cry, the thunder of feet rushing across the tannery yard. Five men with hooks and blades and lanterns rushed into the shed, shouting and hollering, wanting to know what was going on, one of them screaming, ‘There’s a corpse hanging here.’

  ‘In here,’ Solomon shouted. A man with a lantern dragged back the tarpaulin and the light fell on Corker’s shaking body.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Solomon cried, diving towards him, his eyes falling on the boy’s bloodstained shirt. ‘You’re going to be all right, lad.’ He trembled, his hand pressing on the bubbling wound.

  Corker coughed, his face washed white and spectral, his brown eyes filled with terror.

  ‘Sol,’ he whispered, his fingers reaching for Solomon. ‘It hurts.’

  Solomon’s lower lip puckered. Desperate to do something, anything, he scooped his arms under Corker’s knees and shoulders. ‘I’ll take you to Merri’s,’ he blubbered.

  ‘Wait,’ Corker whispered, his body contorting in agony. ‘I . . .’ He struggled for breath, his fingers winding softly around Solomon’s hand.

  Solomon lowered him gently down onto the floor, holding him in his arms.

  ‘You’re going to be all right,’ he whispered.

  Corker groaned. A short hiss emanated from his mouth. His body suddenly stilled. His expression softened. His fingers fell loose. Something in his eyes vanished as he stared blankly up at nothing in particular.

  *

  Janey Mack cried inconsolably as Corker’s body was laid on the table. Solomon was deathly pale, his blue eyes burned red raw from crying. Merriment trembled as she fetched a basin of scented water and slowly and stiffly began preparing poor Corker’s body for the grave.

  ‘I should have sent him home,’ Solomon whispered and Janey Mack sobbed, her little heart broken.

  ‘He was me best friend,’ she wept. ‘And shockin’ good to his brothers and sisters and his mam, even though his mam’d drink. Why would anyone want to kill him?’

  ‘A bad man did it,’ Solomon said and he buried his face in his hands and wept, his whole body shaking with inconsolable grief. ‘The poor little lad,’ he gulped. ‘God help him. The poor little lad.’

  Merriment paused, covering her mouth.

  Solomon went to Merriment and, gently taking the cloth from her hand, said, ‘Let me.’

  He carefully washed Corker’s frail bare chest and face and arms. They dressed him in a fresh shirt belonging to Solomon, and Janey Mack combed his hair and kissed his face and whispered to him all the places he had once told her he would visit.

  ‘I’ll go to Glendalough on yer behalf, Corker, and put a flower in Saint Kevin’s Church for ye there. And I’ll take a ship to London when I’m older and put a flower on Tower Bridge in memory of ye. And I’ll go to Queenstown and fling a rose into the sea to honour ye and I’ll never forget ye, I promise. Never.’

  Janey Mack’s whispering broke Solomon’s heart. He crumpled in the chair and cried, shaking his head with grief and disbelief. Merriment wrapped her arms around him and stroked his hair, fighting back the tears, desperate to be strong for Solomon’s sake.

  Janey Mack lit two corpse candles and placed them by Corker’s head. She found a small Bible and folded his hands over it, entwining rosary beads around his fingers.

  ‘He kept his family goin’,’ Janey Mack sniffed. ‘Ye looked after him, Sol. Gave him a chance and he was doin’ fine and dandy, workin’ in a grand office, drinking port with yer man Chesterfield and ordering that lad at the office about.’

  Solomon’s heart stung listening to Janey Mack repeat the tall tales Corker had told her about his own advancement.

  ‘He loved you, Sol.’ Janey Mack’s lower lip quivered. ‘Ye gave him a chance.’

  Solomon blinked and turned his face away.

  ‘Say some prayers, Janey,’ Merriment quickly interjected, desperate to ease Solomon’s grief. She took Solomon’s hand and squeezed it. Solomon bit back the tears. ‘Merri,’ he whispered. ‘There’s something you need to know.’

  He glanced over at Janey Mack as he slipped out into the shop, and waited for Merriment to join him. ‘The Dolocher. It wasn’t Hawkins. He’s still out there, somewhere.’

  He rolled his eyes as a realisation suddenly dawned on him. ‘The boots,’ he muttered. ‘Of course.’

  ‘What boots?’ Merriment asked.

  ‘That day on the gallows, as Hawkins was swinging, I noticed his feet. He had small feet and the boots by the fender the night we found the Dolocher’s lair, those boots were large. Damn it to hell.’ He brushed back a wedge of blond hair, frustrated and distraught. ‘I have to find him.’

  Merriment’s face was pasty white, her eyes wide with sorrow.

  ‘You have the militia searching for him.’

  She gently pressed her hand to his distressed face and wiped her thumb over his cheek. ‘Sol, this is a terrible business.’ She searched his eyes. ‘There was nothing you could have done.’

  But he couldn’t hear her, couldn’t bear the words.

  ‘That little lad’ – he pointed into the anteroom, his lips shaking – ‘what had he to do with any of them?’ He was trembling with rage, barely able to breathe, when a knock came on the shop door.

  ‘Mister Fish,’ someone called in and Solomon wiped his face and drew back the lock.

  Two militia with flaming torches stood before him.

  28

  The Cock and Hen

  Solomon stood beside Merriment outside the front of the shop bleakly listening to the soldiers who had been among the patrol that had searched the tannery outbuildings high and low.

  ‘Vanished,’ one said, ‘into thin air.’

  Solomon groaned and shook his head. ‘He’s not a demon,’ he hissed in despair. ‘His name is
Billy Knox and he is the Dolocher.’

  The soldiers looked pale and tired; it was after one o’clock in the morning. The city was deathly quiet. A red baleful moon hung low on the horizon, casting an eerie light over the silent streets. In the anteroom Janey Mack was sitting at Corker’s side, holding his hand, saying countless prayers over his clean and sweet-smelling corpse.

  ‘We’ve searched the Black Dog, the docks, the safe houses, all the places you told us. There’s no sign of him,’ one of the soldiers sniffed, scratching his nose.

  ‘He’s escaped somehow. Call up more soldiers, look harder, leave no stone unturned.’

  ‘We’re doing our best, Mister Fish. The boats are being searched as we speak, in case he has decided to stow away. He must know we’re on to him.’

  Merriment squeezed Solomon’s arm. ‘Come on, Sol, come inside.’

  Solomon leaned against the shop front and dragged his hands over his face as the soldiers strode away in the direction of Dublin Castle.

  ‘I can’t.’ He bit down on his lower lip, unable to go back inside and see poor Corker’s dead corpse laid out on the table. He took Merriment’s pistol from its holster.

  Merriment reached for him. ‘Sol, what are you doing?’

  ‘I’m going to find Billy Knox,’ he growled, storming off up the road.

  She rushed after him. ‘Wait,’ she pleaded. ‘You can’t go alone. Where are you even going? What do you think you’re going to do?’

  ‘He’s a man, Merri. A pernicious, nasty, evil man, not some demon with supernatural powers. A man in a pig’s skin. He’s flesh and bone and I’m going to kill him with your pistol. Now, go back to the shop.’

  ‘You can’t.’ Merriment could feel herself getting frantic. She glanced back at the partially open door. Janey Mack’s wan face peeked out.

  ‘Get back inside,’ she called, then turned back to Solomon, who was charging off. ‘But where do you think he is?’ she called forlornly, only able to pick out Solomon’s blond hair and the tops of his shoulders washed in pallid moonlight. He vanished silently into the shadows.