Shadow of the Dolocher

by European P. Douglas

  The future was trying to come to her, but she resisted it. She saw herself going to Madam Melanie and asking if she could stay for one night, but beds and room were at a premium there, and she knew that the only way this could happen was if she agreed to work once more for the house. She couldn't go back to that life, not now that she had seen a life without it.

  Kate had been so happy these last two years; it had really been the happiest time of her life. She longed to hope that Tim would see that what she did, she did for him alone and he would be able to forgive her. She couldn't see it happening, but she knew above all else that what she wanted was a life with him. He was a stubborn and proud man, and this would be an almost mortal wound to him, she could understand that but surely his love for her, which she knew was as real as her own, would bring him round in the end.

  "Don't be a foolish woman!" she said out loud, she would have to stop this silly day dreaming. None of it was going to happen. Tim was going to come home later with whiskey in his belly, drunk and these thoughts of what she had done in his mind swirling around and getting worse and worse and worse. The truth of the matter was that he had a temper on him when drunk and though he had never raised a hand to her before she was probably in danger of being hit tonight.

  Kate got up and packed a bundle in a blanket and wrapped herself against the cold of the night outside. She looked over the home she had enjoyed so much one last time, and the tears welled in her eyes, and she thought that this was the last time she would see it. She left and closed the door with a bang, leaving her key inside on the table, a visual clue for when Tim came home that she was already gone.

  It was bitterly cold out as she walked the streets. She had no destination in mind, but she found that she walked in the direction of Christ Church. The ground was icy, and a few times she almost lost her footing. Businesses were closed, and the taverns were the only real sources of noise on the streets. She passed Tim's preferred cabin, but she could not see inside to see if he was in there.

  She hoped that he was not looking out and able to see her. It would be too hard to see him now that she had to leave. She walked on and soon found that she was outside the blacksmith. She looked at the building and thought of the times she'd been inside, she thought of Tim working and his muscles as he did so. She wished for the warmth of that place now and the protection of those muscles.

  As she stood there, Kate wondered again if she knew of anyone who would take her in to save her from going to Melanie's. She was desperate, and in her desperation, she even thought briefly of going to the Alderman to see if he could do anything to help her, but she quickly dismissed this as ridiculous.

  She looked around, and she saw the basement barred window of 'The Black Dog, ' and she recalled the time she had spent in there. She tried to convince herself that had been worse than now but she didn't feel it. When she was in there, she had been a single woman, unmarried and being punished for her job. Now her whole life was gone, she may be free to walk where she pleased, but she had nothing. It was so cold, and the wind whipped up and made it seem even more so. She was sure that this was the most miserable moment of her entire life.

  Chapter 63

  There were ten children in all; each one of them terrified looking as they stood in a line as if about to be shot by firing squad. Alderman James arrived and looked them over; they were suitably scared for his needs. He walked up and down before them and then suddenly rounded on one boy in the middle of the group.

  "Who paid you to make all the noise the other night?" The boy stood upright but failed to speak even though he seemed to be trying to. "What about you?" James said turning to a little girl next to this boy.

  "A man," she said. She was trembling, and it softened James a little. He took a step back from them and sighed.

  "What man?" They all looked at one another. "What did he look like?"

  "He was in a black cloak with a hood," a boy, a little older than the others said. James looked at him. "His face was red," the boy added. James instantly recognised this as the man who had given the letter to the boy to bring to his house. This moment of elation was sort lived, however, as he knew that these children would know or remember no more about this man than the boy with the letter had when questioned.

  "Can you describe him better?" James asked this boy.

  "He was a gentleman, I could tell by his voice."

  "What did he sound like?" This seemed to perplex and embarrass the boy.

  "Well," he fidgeted and looked to the other children for help, "He sounded like a gentleman."

  "What did he say to you?" James asked, knowing he was not going to get anything of use in relation to the voice.

  "Only that he would give us money for making noises at a certain time."

  "Did say what would happen if you didn't make the noise?"

  "He said he was the Devil and he would take us to Hell if we didn't do it!" the little girl suddenly piped up and she started crying, as though being in that same moment again.

  James could see the image of the Devil looking at him through the crowd in the picture he'd received at the site where the most recent body had been displayed.

  "He wasn't the real Devil, dear," he said wanting to reassure the girl and the others. He didn't want them to believe that such a thing might be possible. It didn't seem to make any difference to them.

  "He said if we did it we would never see him again," the boy said.

  "Where did he talk to you?" James asked.

  "In the lane around the back of the houses," the boy said, angling his head as though he was using it to point.

  James turned to the soldiers and said,

  "Go around these houses here again; ask them all this time did they see a man in a black hooded cloak or anyone who may have been painted red in the weeks before the murders." He then turned back to the children, "I promise you that this was not the Devil you were speaking to, he is a very bad person, to be sure, but he is a man." He wondered would they recognise this man if he were in front of them, without the cloak and hood or the make-up?

  He knew that if he asked them he was only going to give them nightmares about coming face to face with Beelzebub once more. He dismissed the children, feeling that they were going to be of no use; if he thought of anything he could be able to find them again easy enough.

  When he was alone, James wondered about Spencer. If Edwards was right, he was the man behind all of this. Was he a mad man, seeing the Devil all about him because he was going about dressed himself as the Devil? Was the last sketch how he saw the world, a sea of faceless bodies and a laughing Devil in the near distance, egging him on or mocking him to action?

  James had seen men committed to asylums before and in all those cases it was not a pretty sight. Spencer hadn't seemed wild or manic the few times that he had met him, but when James looked back, he seemed to recall Spencer looking around and being fidgety quite a lot. Perhaps he was at the early stage of his madness then. Then there was the sketch. Had this been the work of Spencer too? Was it almost an admission of guilt, a man wanting to be caught? It was looking more and more likely that it had been Spencer all along.

  There was no way around it; Spencer would have to be questioned. It would be an awkward scene, and there could be divisions within some of the circles these army men moved in. Spencer was also a member of the Hellfire Club, and that was another obstacle that would have to be overcome. If Spencer was the man they were looking for it would also come as quite a shock to the general populace.

  They weren't too surprised when the identity of the Dolocher was revealed to be one of their own, but for a killer to be a gentleman, an officer in the Kings Army? That was quite a different matter, and there was no way of telling how they might react to it.

  James went outside and got into his carriage, asking the driver to take him home. It seemed so often he was in this confined box going from place to place, contemplating everything, and living with the frustration that he knew nothing;
that he was ways behind these killers and never got a break on them.

  He often thought that if Cleaves had not mistaken Mullins for a woman that night and been subdued by the blacksmith he would still be going about killing in Thomas Olocher's name and James would be no closer to catching him than he had been at the time.

  It didn't feel to him that Spencer was the man, but the evidence did seem to be pointing that way and he couldn't ignore it any more. He wondered if he should bring Edwards with him when he questioned the Colonel?

  Edwards had turned him in, so there was obviously no love lost but did that mean that the Hellfire Club was going to let one of its members go down like this? James could already feel the pressure that would come with his even talking to Spencer about the killings let alone arresting him as the perpetrator.

  Chapter 64

  It was Kate's second night on the streets. She had spent the first hiding in a place that she thought she would be completely safe. Once, that was, she was not discovered. Late on the first night, she came on the idea that she could go to Lord Muc's land. He had sheds and outhouses there, and she felt sure she would be able to conceal herself in one of them and go unnoticed.

  Kate knew Muc by reputation, and he would most likely stumble home near dawn and sleep in the main house; she could be gone long before he got up. If this was not the way things went, she still felt sure that she would be able to hide herself in one of his barns so that even if he did come in there, he would not see her. She also felt safe in the knowledge that no one in his or her right mind would come there to steal from him.

  Kate arrived there at a very late hour. It was almost bright out such was the force of the moon, but also shadows clung like draped cloth over everything. She watched Lord Muc's gates for a time, searching for any movement beyond.

  All was still for a long time before she decided to go over and duck inside. Her heart was pounding as she hunkered down and again looked over the sheds and house for anything moving. When she was again satisfied, she ran another short distance to one of the sheds.

  In here, she felt some of the chill of the night lift. The wind no longer rattled her body. She looked about and saw that there were no animals in here but that there was some hay where she could lie, and there was enough to cover herself and her bundle as well.

  Soon she was comfortable and warm, and with her nervous energy exhausted as well as her mental and hence physical fatigue, she soon started to drift in that state between sleep and wakefulness. She wasn't expecting a decent night's sleep, but she thought a rest would do her a world of good.

  It wasn't long before she began to regret her decision to come to this place. She woke to an odd sound, and she cleared some hay from her head so as to hear better.

  It was animals, they were moving around in the other sheds in the compound. They sounded agitated, and she wondered what could be the matter with them. Then she heard a pig, and it brought her immediately back to that night in 'The Black Dog' when Thomas Olocher was brought in, and all the pigs squealed in the night and tried to force their way into the yard of the gaol.

  Some more pigs sounded out now in Muc's sheds, and she jumped to her feet and looked about terrified and slow with sleep. The animals were clearly moving around in the corrals now, and she could hear the wood of the fences crack and bend in the otherwise silent night.

  They were trying to evade something or someone. This thought came to her, and she thought straight away of the killer who now prowled the streets, who killed in one place and dropped bodies off in spots where the Dolocher had killed.

  Was this the place where it happened? Was it possible that the noises she heard were not animals but of people, trapped and about to be murdered by some frenzied maniac? She stopped herself, she was getting way out of hand, the panic had made her think like this- coupled with only waking up. Of course, it was animals, she could hear clearly that they were pigs, a noise that she had heard many times before.

  Kate managed to calm somewhat, but then she heard a new noise. It was a person this time, there was no mistaking it, and they were breathing heavily. It must be Lord Muc she thought. He had in come home without her hearing or had he been at home all the time? She gathered up her belongings, she wasn't safe here now and would have to get away. Kate didn't know what he was doing or what he was going to do. The animals were squealing now worse than ever, and she could feel the fear in those noises, a fear that she shared with the pigs.

  Kate crept out of the shed and looked around. She could tell that the pigs were in the shed closest to the house. The whole place was rocking, and the noise was getting to new heights. She heard something metal, like knives or cleavers, sharpening and she couldn't take it anymore, she threw caution to the wind and set off towards the gate.

  As she began to run, she heard the roar of a man like he was entering combat and she heard the implement pierce and tear flesh and one of the animals screamed out in pain, a new sound that went right through her and caused her to run ever faster away.

  Though she hadn't seen anything and wasn't sure what had actually happened, Kate was sure that there was no way she was going back to that place. She would have rather stayed in the 'Nunnery' in the gaol than in one Muc's sheds again.

  Now she walked as the night wore on with no more ideas as to where to go. She was terrified of everything but had no clue what to do with herself. Every second was spent fighting her urges to go to Melanie's or even worse still to Edwards' house.

  As she walked from Nicolas Street into Bride's Alley she heard something fall and roll along the ground, it was a metallic sound, like something tin perhaps. Kate looked about and saw nothing that could have been the source of the noise.

  She crossed quickly to Chancery Lane, and rounded the bend where she could see Golden Lane. As she walked towards this, she heard something behind her, and she turned just in time to realise that they were footsteps assomeone was coming behind her at speed. She didn't see a face, but she felt the massive weight of man careen into her and send her flying to the ground. She was completely winded, and she could make no noise.

  A heavy punch thundered into her ribs, and this made it even harder for her to breath and still, she could make no noise, or cry out for help.

  "Get away!" a voice she knew called out and the weight on her lifted, and the man was gone, running away and out of sight as quickly as he had returned. She lay there as the face of Edwards, concerned and almost in tears, came into view.

  "Are you alright?" he asked, helping her to a sitting position. She nodded, but she still couldn't talk yet. "Did you see who he was?" he asked. She shook her head; she hadn't seen anything really except his shape. She started to get up, and he helped her. Her breath was back now, and she looked at Edwards properly for the first time.

  "Why did you tell him!" she shouted suddenly and she pounded on his chest and began to sob. Her energy quickly dissipated and after the attack, her adrenalin was sapping now too, and she slumped down until he had to take her weight, “Bastard!" she managed to say weakly before she closed her eyes and fell unconscious.

  Chapter 65

  The wolf was not caught on that drunken evening that the reward was offered. Some dogs paid the price for their resemblance through alcohol eyes, and one pig was killed perhaps in memory of that night when that breed was the hunted animal. Not one man even saw the beast that night that anyone can be sure of.

  Mullins had known this would be the case. In all of Dublin, he knew of only one man who he thought would be capable of bringing in the wolf, and that man was Lord Muc. Each morning he woke, Mullins expected to hear that the reward had been claimed and that it would be the former gang leader who had claimed it. He took some comfort in knowing that Muc probably thought the same about him, but he'd had enough contact with that creature without looking for more.

  It was true that Mullins was the one who had brought down the Dolocher, but despite all the rumour and fear that had been about, the Dolocher was only a man
in the end. Mullins was also drunk that night and had he seen him coming he might have fled. But he didn't see it coming, and he had fought only to protect himself.

  What a shock that night turned out to be, an instant sobriety when he saw that it was his friend who had tried to kill him, who had been killing all those people for so long, whom Mullins thought had been a victim of this same killer.

  Any time Cleaves came to mind of late, he could think only of the empty grave and wonder where his body was now. Who was this new killer and why had he dug up the grave? He could see that it was part of the whole linking of these crimes with those of the Dolocher, but none of it made any sense to him. Mullins looked out and decided that he could do with some of the cold fresh air that was on offer outside and that he was going to go for a walk.

  He walked out towards the river and looked into the murky water. Floats of ice moved here and there on the surface. He crossed over at Queens Bridge and walked on the other side of the river along Arran Quay and then onto King's Inn Quay. Though it was only a matter of a couple of hundred yards from where he conducted most of his life, it felt like a new place altogether to be on the north side of the city.

  This was where the rich people lived; the Alderman, this man Edwards who had a contract on his whereabouts, the politicians of the parliament. They were the people who could do what they wanted and never have to give the consequences a second thought.

  As he walked over here, however, Mullins began to feel out of place and somehow in danger. He had a feeling that he shouldn't be seen outside the regular neighbourhood; memories of this same feeling as he fled Cleaves' grave boiled in him. He felt he was somehow implicating himself in something by being on this side of the river, a place he didn't belong. He crossed back at Exeter Bridge, and he could almost physically feel a weight being lifted as he stepped back on the south side.