The Dolocher (16 page)

Mullins paced his room in agitation, and he stoked the fire to keep life in it and get the rush of warmth on his hands, arm, face and chest as he did. Earlier he had received a message from Mary Sommers that Kate would call to his house some time after six when he was finished work. It was just gone seven now, and he was tired of waiting, his nervousness getting the best of him over and over again; he didn’t know why she was coming. He had said that he was going to try to kill the Dolocher but what did she want to say back to him?

Finally, the soft rapping he longed for came on this thick door, so faint that he could have missed had the fire been crackling at all just then. He opened it quickly, and the cold whooshed in from outside. She stood there looking at him, and it took a moment for him to invite her in. He cursed his own ineptitude with women, and there was no wonder he didn’t have a wife.

“Sit by the fire and heat yourself,” he said pulling a chair from the table to the fireside for her. She thanked him, and he nodded. “Do you want a drink?” he asked and then wondered if there was anything he could give her if she said yes.

“Are you having one?”

“No.”

“Then I won’t, thank you.” They were silent a little then, and Mullins didn’t know what to do with his hands. He pulled a chair in front of himself and rested his hands on the back of it. “I just wanted to come and say thank you in person for what you are doing,” she said hurriedly.

“You don’t have to do that Miss,” he said

“Please call me Kate, Miss sounds terrible on me” she laughed and he could hear nervousness in her laugh that mirrored his own awkwardness at this moment. “You are doing a very brave thing,” she said. He blushed and fiddled so much with the chair that he lifted it clear off the floor.

“I’m doing this for revenge,” he said as he placed it back quietly on the ground.

“I was very sorry to hear about your friend,” she said softly.

“Well, both he and you and Mary Sommers deserve to be avenged,” he said and again he blushed, deeper this time.

She stood up as if to leave, and he saw that there were tears in her eyes.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “it will all be over soon.”

She rushed to him and threw her arms around him and hugged hard,

“Be careful,” she said crying now “Don’t get yourself killed.” He put his arms around her small frame and hugged much more lightly than she.

“I won’t,” he said. She pulled back and kissed him on the cheek as she did, on the scar that ruined his face and he recoiled a little and let go of her.

“I’m sorry..” she said, not knowing how to go on.

“It’s ok, it’s just tender in the cold weather,” he lied.

She took his hand and looked at his eyes.

“You don’t have to do this. I don’t’ want you to feel you have to.”

“I don’t feel I have to; I want to do this.” Her hand was warm and soft on his, and he wanted to squeeze it gently, but he didn’t dare.

“Don’t do anything tonight, I’ll come back tomorrow,” she said, “Will you promise me that?”

“Nothing tonight, I can do that,” he said but he had no idea as to why she would want that.

When she left, he marvelled at the feel of his face, along the scar where she had put her lips on him. It had been so long since he had felt the sweetness of a kiss, and it consumed his evening until he fell asleep that night. He thought he could actually still feel the lingering residue of her on him, and he could smell her perfume on his skin. It was the nicest way he had fallen asleep that he could remember in his life.

Kate went to Mullins’ house as promised the next evening. He seemed to her to be slightly less awkward than the previous evening and when she entered he had tea made at the table and the chair she was to sit on was over by the fire and warmed already. She took the tea offered and then he sat down at a chair across from her holding his own cup in his huge hands. It was quite amusing for her to see him like this.

“Did you stay home last night?” she asked.

“Yes.” He seemed agitated as though he wanted to say something to her, something that he must feel was important. She didn’t say anything to give him an opportunity to say what was on his mind. He was struggling, and it was becoming unbearable for her to watch him.

“I think...”

“I don’t expect you to owe me anything for doing this!” he said just as she began to talk. She looked at him at a loss for a moment.

“The whole city will owe you our gratitude if you are to kill it.”

“I don’t need their gratitude, I’m as much at risk at night as everyone else who is outdoors,” he said and he leaned forward in his chair to poke at the fire. She felt he did this so as not to look at her at that moment.

“I shouldn’t have said that I would give myself to you,” she said but he only looked harder at the fire now and she felt his discomfort. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want me anyway,” and now he did look at her,

“No, don’t talk like that, I just meant that you won’t owe me anything as it is not your responsibility to get rid of the Dolocher.”

“It’s not yours either.”

“It is now,” he said grimly and she felt that he was determined in his own mind that he had to kill this creature now to avenge his friend. She wondered did he think about how if he had tried to kill the Dolocher when she had first asked him would his friend still be alive? If he did, it would be a terrible burden on him.

“Every night that I am not at the brothel I see the Alderman out patrolling the streets.”

“I’ve seen him myself.”

“Maybe we should go to him and let him know that you will be out at night looking for it; that might make it less likely that you would be a suspect if something did happen.”

“Maybe.”

“He seems to want to catch it too, when I was attacked he came to my rescue and he ran after it but it got away from him.”

“He seems like a nice enough fellow.”

“He came and spoke to me after the my attack and he was very nice to me.”

They sat watching the fire for a time, and he poured her more tea. With the silence between them, they could hear some people arguing through the walls next door. Though the words were not clear they could tell it was a couple arguing about something; there was a hurt passion in the tones of voice that murmured to them and joined the crackling fire. A jet of released air from the turf hissed in the grate. Mary looked at him and without saying anything she leaned over and kissed him.

He was hesitant at first but soon he pushed his lips against hers, and they met with equal force. He put his arms around her, and she felt herself being pulled into his embrace. She sat on his lap and put her own arms around his head and then pulled her head back and looked into his eyes. She saw the fire reflected in them, but also something she had never seen before, something trustful and real and yet unnameable; a tenderness for her as a person and not as worker or pastime. She smiled, and he looked seriously into her eyes, and then he kissed her again and again and they kissed for a long time.

She left later that evening to go to work, but neither of them mentioned where she was going. He asked if he could walk her anywhere, and she declined.

“I’ll keep to the busy streets,” she said. As she left, she knew that neither of them knew what had just happened between them meant to the other.

Alderman James’ carriage pulled up on Francis Street, and he got out and looked at the large house he was about to enter. He knew it well enough from the outside but he had never been inside before, and he wondered now what horrors he might find in there. That morning he had received a note from Mr. Edwards to come to the Hellfire Club meeting building at midday. It was just that now, and James knocked on the door.

For a while no one answered and then he repeated his knock. Still nothing; he listened at the wood and he heard the sound of footsteps approaching and then the door was unlocked from within by Edwards himself.

“Sorry, Alderman but our doormen are under orders only to answer to a secret knock that changes every day.”

James stepped inside shaking Edwards hand and waving off his worries about being left outside with the other hand. On first inspection, it was not as he had expected. There were no lewd paintings or craven images anywhere to be seen and the sculptures on display were of more Greek inspiration than Satanic. Instead, this place was fitted out like the best of the Gentlemen’s clubs and taverns in the city. In a strange sense, James felt deflated about this, disappointed that it was not the devil’s lair he thought it would be.

“You have something to show me?” James said without chit chat.

“I do, follow me Alderman.”

They walked up the wide and magnificent stairs. Plush carpets ran up the centre and the wooden steps on either side of this were so polished and well maintained that they could have been stone. The bannisters were wide and smooth and the handrail thick; he imagined the men who frequented here could quite possibly have polished this by sliding down it the whole time (he doubted they had any horses in this place to smash it up.) When they got to the top of the stairs James could hear voices in a room whose door was closed off to the left; there was something boisterous and possibly illegal or immoral going on in there but Edwards took him the opposite direction along a small dark corridor where they came to a panelled wooden door with engravings on it that he couldn’t make out in the poor light.

“Prepare yourself Alderman,” Edwards said as he opened the door.

In the centre of the room on a huge mahogany table, there lay something massive, an animal of some kind covered in black brisling hair. It was enormous, and James looked at Edwards who was smiling at his reaction.

“What is it?” James asked though he thought he knew what the other would say.

“Go in and take a look. It’s quite dead” James walked in and around the table. Two huge serrated tusks protruded from the jaws of a boar, the largest specimen of which he had ever seen or even heard of. It must have been six feet long and at least three feet high; its powerful shoulder and leg muscles seemed bulging and rock hard.

“The Dolocher?” James asked stupefied. He was so sure that it was a man all this time.

“I think so,” Edwards said. No matter what he had heard to the contrary James never thought an animal was responsible, he had seen a human hand in every killing. How had he not seen the possibility of something like this monster being in existence?

“So it was an animal after all,” he said, his downcast eyes finding the thick front hoof of one foot, and he imagined the power that must have been behind it.

“The tusks are not smooth as you may have noticed, and that is what caused the jagged marks on the victims that looked like teeth tearing at them,” Edwards said in the vein of a university professor. James felt the tusks, and he was surprised at how sharp and hard they were; very much capable of great damage indeed.

“How did it come to be here?” he asked still looking over it.

“One of my ‘eyes’ brought it to my attention. It was lying dead by the canal bank late last night.”

“Who killed it?”

“No idea how it died actually. There are no marks on it that I can see.”

“By the canal?”

“Well, the Poddle near the Coombe but only lesser men could call that stream a river.”

James walked all the way around the table and looked at the boar from every angle. He couldn’t get over the size of it. He had been on boar hunts before, had seen big ones skinned and spread on spits but nothing like this animal.

“What do you intend to do with it?”

“I intend to eat it, but I thought you might like to display it for the masses first?”

“This is not what the people want to see...”

“This is what the people want to see Alderman. It is not what you want to see,” Edwards interrupted. “This is a bit of a let-down for both of us I’m afraid,” he went on.

“I don’t see how the ending of a murderous rampage by a wild animal should be disappointing to anyone,” James said.

“Let’s be truthful here Alderman. You wanted to either catch or slay this beast yourself and get the credit for it with these people and I have to say I had harboured nice fantasies myself of being the one who brought it in-mine was for my own amusement, however,” Edwards smiled.

“It’s over Mr Edwards,” James said, “That is what really matters.”

Edwards nodded ruefully, and he looked over the boar himself.

“There is still a way for you to get what you want from this,” he said after a pause.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, only a couple of people know this is here right now, and they would be discreet if asked.”

“I don’t’ follow.”

“Say you and I bring this dirty fellow to one of the back alleys tonight after dark. You cut it up a bit and leave your sword in its throat and then raise the alarm. People will flock to see the hero who has slayed the Dolocher,” Edwards was smiling, but the smile had an edge to it that James didn’t quite understand.

He would be lying to himself if he didn’t find this idea enticing, at least at that moment it was mentioned, but he couldn’t do something like that.

“No, thank you for your concern but it is I that I need to appease not the people of this city.”

“So how would you like to announce this?” Edwards asked.

“Perhaps we should bring it to Corn Market and show it there. That is after all where everyone assumes is the start point to all this, why not end it there as well?”

“Why not indeed. I’ll get it down there in a covered cart for say 3 o’clock?”

“Yes that sounds fine.”

“Please though Alderman, try to keep the people under control. I am really looking forward to getting stuck into this at dinner tonight,” and this time Edwards smile was broad and malevolent and James could almost sense an anger that this beast had died not at Edwards hand or that it was no longer going to be around to entertain him.

At the appointed hour, the cart pulled up outside Newgate Prison, and the Alderman stood up on the back of it and called out to the crowd to gather round. There had already been something of a gathering as news spread that the military presence had grown since midday around the prison. Now more came out from shops and other businesses and formed a half moon around the cart at the gates of the ‘Black Dog.’

“I have some great news for Dublin today,” the Alderman began and at once there were ripples of talk in the crowd. “The Dolocher is no more!” he said and he pulled the white sheet covering from the boar with a flourish and stood back as the collected gasp of the crowd came at him.

They rushed forward to the edge of the cart pushing the cordon of soldiers back against it and rocking it violently enough that James almost lost his balance. There was no menace in the crowd and the soldiers understood this, and they gently jostled them back by a foot or two.

“Be orderly, you will all get to see,” James called out as he got better footing in the cart.

“Who killed it?” someone called out

“We don’t know, it was found dead on the banks of the Poddle,” James said. Slowly as the people looked with wonder on this porcine phenomenon a sense of relief and celebration began to sweep through the crowd. The most doubtful of them looked at this savage animal with its huge bulk and vicious tusks and it all fit. The rumours were of a huge black pig-this was a huge black pig. Boars were known to everyone to be dangerous at the best of times and the crowd began cheering with laughter as though it were some festival they were at.

“Good riddance!” “Hooray for the death of the Dolocher!” “Hooray for the Alderman!” “Hooray for the dirty water in the Poddle!” the crowd was calling out many things and they all laughed at this last one.

As James enjoyed the festivities, he became aware of the crowd parting and gathering again around a girl who was making her way to towards the cart. The people she passed fell silent, and they watched her as she limped towards the beast. As she got closer, James saw that this was Mary Sommers, a girl who had been badly attacked by the monster and still showed the scars of her ordeal.

“Let her through,” he said to the soldiers in front of the cart.

He watched as she came trembling up to the side of the cart, and she looked along the flank of the animal.

“Would you like to come up here to see it?” he asked and she nodded yes. “Lift her there,” he ordered, and a soldier on either side of her took her by an arm each a lifted her easily onto the bed of the cart. She looked afraid, but James beckoned her to come to his side of the cart and see the creature better. She was trembling as she did, all the while staring at the serrated tusks.

“Don’t worry Miss, he is quite dead I can assure you.”

She stepped to his side and she looked down at the boar seeming to satisfy herself that it was dead. Then she bent down and to the Alderman’s shock she began to feel the tusks and even more bizarrely she lifted the lifeless eyelid of the creature and looked at the glassy eye beneath. She stood back up and then whispered to the Alderman,

“This is not the Dolocher.”

James could feel the blood drain from his face.

“What do you mean?” he asked of her trying not to let the crowd hear what he had said.

“Those are not the eyes I saw when I was attacked and those are not the teeth that tore me up,” she said almost in tears now.

“There, there dear,” James said taking her into his arms and then whispering “Don’t say a word to these people, please. I will talk to you later.” Mary looked at him and nodded and then made to move away, “Let her down men,” he called to the soldiers who lifter her down. “I will come to your house in one hour,” he said quietly to her as she was lifted away from him.

Mary dropped back into the crowd and went back through the people the way she had come. He could see the men and women she passed look at her with pity and some patted her on the back as she went by but then the crowd was swelling, and the tide was being pushed forwards towards the cart and he lost sight of her. He didn’t think she had said anything to any of the people she passed on the way and for this he was thankful.

The cart rocked with the force of the people craning to get a better view and James got down to the ground and began to extricate himself from the fray. He couldn’t suppress it, but there was a strange sense of glad in him that this creature was not the Dolocher and that it was indeed a man he was looking for. There was a still a chance for him to been seen differently in the eyes of the populace.

As he climbed into his carriage he looked out over the people as was his habit and looked for those eyes. The eyes that Mary Murray had seen.