The Dolocher (17 page)

Kate was trying to get work at the docks when she heard a ripple through the crowd at the market. There was some news spreading fast through the stalls, and here and there cheers went up, and a lot of people began to leave the area through the alleys at Temple Bar. Kate rushed to the vegetable stall to see what was happening.

“They’ve caught the Dolocher!” the seller said and she seemed like she was itching to leave her stall and go and see for herself.

“Really this time?” Kate asked hoping for a yes.

“Seems so, a man who was up there said there is a giant boar up there at the ‘Black Dog’ that has massive tusks like saws and it way bigger than any normal pig he’s ever seen.”

Without saying anything else Kate walked as fast as she could towards the prison to see for herself. She was trembling as she neared Cornmarket, and she could see the large crowd from a long way off; some were cheering, and there was a general sense of relief that was palpable in the air. As she got to the back of the crowd she could hear people talking of the size of the beast and how vicious it looked.

As she tried to push into the crowd, many of whom were leaving having seen the monster and become tired with being crushed in the crowd, she noticed Mary emerging from the group. She looked pale and in shock and Kate called out to her but Mary made no indication that she heard her, and she kept on walking in the direction of where they lived.

Kate was torn as to whether to go after her or to go and look at the boar. She called out one last time to Mary and then she felt herself push into the crowd as she made her way towards the gate of the prison. She couldn’t see where she was going as everyone around her was so much taller than she and she bumped against peoples backs and ducked under outstretched arms until finally and without warning she stumbled into a tiny clearing and fell against the side of a wooden cart and found herself face to face with the monster.

She screamed in fright and pulled back from it as people turned to see what had happened. A hush fell over the crowd as clarification on why someone had screamed in that way was forthcoming. Kate ignored the eyes on her and she looked back at the face of the boar lying on the cart. It was huge and muscular and dark as she had expected. She looked at the long tusks, and she was afraid again as she thought of what they could have done to her that night had the ground at the market not been so slippy. She began to cry and her hands were shaking uncontrollably and she felt some friendly hands on her back lead her away from the sight of the killing creature and towards the back of the crowd and out where she could breathe again properly.

When she was feeling better she thanked the two women who had taken her out and she began to make her way home where she assumed that Mary had gone, she wanted to make sure that she was alright because after all Mary had had a much worse encounter with the Dolocher than she’d had and was probably in a bad state right now even though the thing was lying dead on the cart for all to see.

When she got in Mary was at home sitting in front of a small fire that she had just gotten going, and there was a look of terrible sadness in her eyes.

“You saw it?” Kate asked

“I saw the boar, yes,” Mary said softly.

“Are you feeling ok?”

“Did you see it?” Mary asked her back without answering.

“Yes, it was horrible.”

“It wasn’t the Dolocher,” Mary said.

“What?” Kate couldn’t understand why Mary would say this.

“I got up beside it, and I opened its eyes, and they are not the eyes that I saw the night I was attacked.”

“But it has to be Mary, they eyes might be different when the thing dies.”

“Did you see it when it attacked you?”

“Yes but only glimpses as I was doing my best to get away and was afraid to look back at it.”

“Did it look like that thing they are parading around out there?”

Kate thought for a moment but she had found for a long time that what she could remember of the night she was attacked often became confused with the hallucinations she’d had the night they drank the Absinthe in the room and now as images came to her of the attack this new shape and size of the boar was what she thought she remembered.

“I don’t know, it’s very confusing,” Kate finally admitted.

“You saw the eyes though as well didn't you?” Kate though for a moment and then on this point she was sure.

“Yes, I definitely saw the eyes,” Mary nodded and looked back at the fire.

“If you go back up and look at the eyes on that boar you will see that it not what attacked you in the same way that I did.”

Kate sat down and put her arms around Mary and squeezed her against herself.

“Well, it was a nice few minutes believing it was dead,” she said smiling.

“I’m sorry,” Mary said

“It’s not your fault.”

Outside they could hear people going about the streets telling those who hadn’t heard yet and the descriptions of the monster wafted up and in through the thin walls of the building. They were all going to be very disappointed, and for the second time, that the Dolocher was not what was captured. Kate looked at Mary, and she felt pride at how brave this young girl was, and she squeezed her again, only a little tighter this time.

People scuttled along the streets and disappeared down laneways and through doors in fear. Mullins stayed in his shop knowing full well what was happening outside. He worked on with the white hot metal, dousing it in water and laying it on his anvil to be hammered. He waited for the doorway to be darkened as he knew it would and when it did he turned to face Lord Muc.

The gang leader had a mean look on his face and his eyes were wide open and yet somehow calm. Outside there were about twenty men with various arms and improvised weapons with wild excitement in their eyes and their bodies jittering from the effort of standing still. Mullins didn't bother to let him speak,

“I’ve no interest.”

“I’m not here to ask you to fight.”

“I’m not fixing any weapons either.”

“I’m here to ask you to just come and watch today.”

“Why?”

“To see what you are missing.”

“I’m not missing anything.”

“You don’t think you are anyway,” Muc smiled.

“So you think I will go and watch you lot fight and I will be so impressed that I will want to join up?” Mullins sneered, but Muc wasn’t fazed by this at all.

“I don’t think you will be impressed, but you will be stirred, and that’s all I’m looking for.” Mullins thought for a moment what to say next.

“If I go an watch and am not interested at all will that be the end of your pestering of me?”

“That sounds fair,” Muc said.

“Where will it be?”

“At the Poddle, where the Dolocher was found.”

“When?”

“About half an hour.”

“Right, I’ll follow up in a few minutes,” Muc nodded and he went outside and headed in the direction of the mentioned river.

Half an hour later Mullins was up on the site where the fight was going to take place. He took up a position on a high wall that would allow him to watch and at the same time would not permit him to become involved too easily; he had no intention of joining in, but one of the Ormonde Boys might mistake him for one of the enemy and attack him if he was at ground level with the rest of them.

The Liberty Boys were congregated around Lord Muc, who seemed to be performing some kind of ritual. He was saying something over and over, and his eyes were closed as he put his face up to the sky. Mullins could not make out what he was saying, but he had a feeling it was something in Irish. Then Muc got down on his haunches and was still saying something but this time the gang were responding and as Lord Muc began to rise from the ground they became ecstatic and began hooting and hollering until finally Muc was standing bolt upright, and he held two weapons into the air and the others went wild in praise of it. Mullins looked closely to make out the weapons he was holding, it was like two short swords but as though made of bone and with sharp serrated edges. He looked closer still as they were held up against the sky, and he knew then what they were. It was the tusks of the Dolocher!

At that moment a gang of about forty young men appeared from the west -the Ormonde Boys must have done a wide westward arc to avoid detection by the troops as they crossed the river to come to this fight. They arrayed themselves in front of the well outnumbered Liberty Boys and stood shouting obscenities.

Without hesitation, Lord Muc let out a feral howl and charged at the enemy, his gang in close proximity behind. It seemed to take the other gang by surprise, and they to a man stepped back a little. Lord Muc met them at full charge and slashed savagely with the tusks of the Dolocher, and two of the enemies fell immediately. Mullins was stunned as he saw the rest of the smaller gang pummel into the shocked lines of the Ormonde Boys. All manner of weapons were swinging and poking and slashing and thrusting, and screams and grunts of pain and effort rang out all over.

The congealed grouping began to break off into smaller man on man fights, and the circumference of violence expanded dramatically with some men even splashing about at each other in the river itself. Mullins had heard of these gang fights before, but he had never actually seen one. He was amazed by how willing to maim and slice their enemies these people were.

There was eye gouging and hammers smashing into cheekbones, knives were cutting into flesh at every part of the body and fists and kicks were supporting the weapons wherever they could. Mullins was drawn to the vision of Lord Muc in the middle of the melee. He looked so powerful and seemed oblivious to any of the wounds that were peppering him as he doled out more serious damage to his foes. He slashed and hacked at them with abandon, and pretty soon the Ormonde Boys were running away (those who could were anyway) and Lord Muc called a halt to proceedings.

Everyone stood up and looked about; both Liberty and Ormonde Boys, and saw the damage that had been done.

“We have the day” Lord Muc said, “Take your lads back across the Liffey,” he said to a few enemies who were still there and possibly able to do anything for their mauled allies. There were men on the ground in extreme pain and some who were clearly dead. The whole thing had lasted only a few minutes but the damage done was immense. Lord Muc held up the tusks and his men cheered. He looked at Mullins with a smile as blood ran from his forehead and neck, and he breathed heavily to oxygenate his muscles.

Mullins sat on his wall with his arms crossed, but he smiled back and gave the gang leader a nod of appreciation before looking at the fallen men once more; their bodies still and their clothes rustling slightly in the breeze. He couldn’t lie to himself. He was intrigued by it all, and he had found himself so involved in the fight in mind that he felt almost as though he had been down on the ground in the thick of it.

Mullins wrapped up warm as he was ready to go out for tonight’s hunt. He had eaten heavily after work today, and he slept as much as he was able to after this. It was now eleven O’clock, and he was ready to start pounding the streets. He was nervous but also hopeful. There was every chance he felt that he could come across this killer and be able to take him down and deliver him or it or whatever the hell it was to the Alderman. He had heard (and seen) that the Alderman often patrolled the streets at night doing this very task and he hoped to run into him early tonight to let him know that Mullins would also be doing the same from now on. He took up a leather pouch in which he had concealed a knife and went out the door into the dark cold of Dublin’s night.

Kate had come to him at the smithy yesterday to let him know that both she and Mary were in agreement that the boar, that was being trumpeted as the Dolocher, was not what had attacked either of them and that the real killer was still loose and would kill again as soon as it could. Mullins couldn’t say that he was entirely disappointed with this news as he had felt a pang of regret when he heard about the boar that he had not been able to avenge Cleaves and Kate and Mary; but now his chance to do damage to this killer was back and he was fully prepared to do it. His body still buzzed with the energy of the violence he had seen at the Poddle a couple of days ago.

Kate had taken his hand in the smithy and again said that he didn’t have to do it, that she was afraid for him now but he clenched her hand and told her he would be fine and as he did he thought about taking her from the life she had once this was all over and he did his best to communicate this to her in the touch of his fingers and the look in his eyes and he felt then that she had understood; and that they both understood that for their future to have a chance of ever existing, the Dolocher would have to be gone.

It was a cold hard night, and he could see his breath vapour in front of him as he walked, the light behind it making it look like the smoke from a pipe. He walked briskly to try to keep warm, and he had no set plan as to where he was going to walk. He knew the general area he was going to stay within, but he decided to let his whim and instinct guide him at every junction he came to. As he came to corners or crossroads he would look in all directions and if he saw breath rising but no person to breath it he went that way; if he saw a person walking alone he went that way, if there was something just too eerily silent about a street he went that way.

He was at this for about half an hour when he saw someone he recognised, but who he couldn’t place for a moment. He followed the man at a distance, and he observed his walk and his mannerisms as he went along seemingly without a care in the world. It was not the Alderman, but someone else he had seen recently; the man who looked at him so oddly when he was taken to the ‘Black Dog,’ that’s who it was! The gentleman he suspected as a possible killer, how could he not have recognised him immediately.

Up ahead the gentleman turned a corner onto Francis Street and was out of sight so Mullins quickened his pace and rushed around the corner in the hope he was still in sight only to find the point of a sword almost prick into his throat, he stopped dead to cease the impact being caused by his own weight.

“You should be more careful about skulking about the streets at night blacksmith,” the man was smiling at him

“Put your sword down,” Mullins growled

“Not until you take your hand from the blade in your pocket,” the man said nodding to where Mullins was indeed unfurling the leather pouch. He stopped and pulled his empty hand into sight.

“My name is Edwards,” the man said lowering his own weapon.

“Mullins.”

“I know who you are and what you have been accused of by your own neighbours and I can tell you sneaking up on people in the dead of night will not enhance your reputation in the slightest.”

“I’m out to make sure that my name is cleared once and for all.”

“How is that?”

“I’m going to catch the Dolocher and kill it.”

At this Edwards burst out laughing, and this perplexed Mullins.

“How are you going to find him? The Alderman has been out all night many times and has not been able to find him yet.”

“I think I may have found him,” Mullins said angrily

“You think I am the Dolocher?” Edwards asked still amused.

“I don’t see why not, I’ve seen you around the streets at night and you are pretty handy with that sword.”

“I haven’t been questioned by the law about any of the killings which is more than I can say for you my good man,” still that smile on his face.

“The Alderman knows I’ve had nothing to do with the murders.”

“Does he know you are out at night now looking to get yourself killed?”

“He doesn’t know but if I see him I will tell him.”

“I can assure you that I am not the Dolocher and that if you are going to be wandering the streets at night you and I may see a lot of each other.”

“So long as I don’t see you killing anyone I’ll not bother you again,” Mullins said with a sarcastic sneer but again Edwards only laughed.

“You are lucky you are talking to me; any other gentleman would have you in the stocks for talking to them like this.” Mullins didn’t know what to say to this. “Carry on blacksmith and the best of luck to you. If I see the Dolocher, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him,” and he laughed heartily once more as he turned and walked away.