The Dolocher (13 page)

It took a long time for the Alderman to come to the prison and when he did Mullins was surprised by what he did. The Alderman came up the stairs and without even looking at Mullins he ordered the prisoner to be released. The soldiers were shocked and couldn’t hide it.

“We found him over the body sir!” the lead soldier pleaded.

“Release him,” was all the Alderman replied.

The cell door was opened, and the lead soldier came in and undid the shackles. As he did he had his back to the Alderman, and he made threatening faces to Mullins, which he interpreted as ‘I’ll get you yet Killer.’

“What do you want us to do with him?” the soldier asked when he was done.

“Nothing, you can go back to your patrol. There is a killer loose after all,” the Alderman said. “I will take Mr. Mullins down and see him out myself.” The soldiers left and went down the stairs.

When they were gone the Alderman motioned for Mullins to follow him, and they both descended the stairs and then were let out the gate and on to the square at Corn Market. When they were clear of the square, walking in the direction Mullins had been brought there the Alderman said,

“You have a habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Sir?”

“You were questioned about the attack on Mary Sommers weren’t you? You walked the streets that night in your leather apron and got all sorts of rumours spinning.”

“Yes sir.”

“I had some questions asked of your neighbours and was told that you went to aid the woman who was killed this evening. That is why I was so long in coming to the prison. I must apologise for the delay.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Did you see the killer?”

“No, she was still screaming only seconds before I got to her but when I got to the lane she was already dead sir.”

“Have you ever had any suspicions as to who it might be?”

“‘Who Sir?” Mullins had noticed that the Alderman had stressed this word and Mullins took it to mean that he held no belief in the Dolocher.

“No Sir, but there is no shortage of savages about,” he answered

“True.”

They walked in silence for a while until they came to Cook Street. Mullins began to wonder if the Alderman was walking him home to keep him out of trouble. They were across from the whiskey cabin when the Alderman suddenly stopped.

“I suppose you deserve a drink after the night you’ve had,” he said looking at the building. Mullins first thought was how the Alderman knew that he frequented there and then he wondered was he proposing they go for a drink together.

“I think it might be wiser of me to go home and stay there tonight,” he said. The Alderman nodded.

“You’re probably right. I shouldn’t think that anything will happen again tonight, but better to be safe than sorry eh?”

“Yes Sir.”

They were silent for a moment as the Alderman looked about the street and then he turned back to Mullins.

“I will leave you here, I think I might go for a little walk before I go home for the night.”

“Yes sir,” Mullins said “Good night Sir,” and he walked away leaving the Alderman standing there nodding to himself.

As he walked along Cook Street the urge to have a drink came over Mullins, it was because the Alderman had suggested it. He looked back, and he could no longer make out the official on the road anywhere. Would he loop back a little and go to the cabin? Maybe the Alderman went in there, and that wouldn’t look good him just coming in right after he said he was going home. Should he go to a tavern closer to home? The Alderman knew that he frequented the cabin, would he find out that he had gone somewhere else that evening after leaving him?

He was so full of doubts and second guessing and all the while his legs were carrying him home. He felt eyes on him as he neared his street and he grew angry at the fact that people, who knew him all his life and had been neighbours of his, could have thought he was capable of killing a woman; it was worse than that-they thought he was the Dolocher. Him, the man who always tried to mind his own business, the man who helped them when brute strength was required to move or lift something! They could all fuck off now; there was no way he was going to do anything for anyone around here again.

He turned right onto his road and made a conscious effort not to look in the direction where the killing had taken place. This made him think about how close it was to his actual home. Although all the killings had taken place in a small area, none of them had seemed to impact on his road until now. The Dolocher could have walked up his very road this morning, could have touched his door or his window as it did.

When he got to his door he stopped and looked at the ground, and he tried to see the rust, that people had thought, was blood the night Mary Sommers was attacked. He looked around in the hope of catching one of the neighbours across the road peering out at him, but he saw no one.

He sat in front of his now dead fire and took the warmth that emanated from the ashes into his hand for a moment but that only made the rest of him feel cold so he stopped. He climbed into his bed with a piece of bread and lay there peering at the ceiling as he chewed slowly. They think I am the Dolocher. It is not too wild a jump for them to make. They knew he could be violent; having seen him in many a brawl, and he was out at night frequently, in fact, he had been out on the nights of all the murders. He just realised this now. Except the one this evening of course, he noted as though trying to clear his own name to himself. It wasn’t me he thought, but it is someone who lives nearby, someone he may see every day walking the streets or working at some merchants. His mind began to flutter between faces he saw all the time, people he knew and people he didn’t and he thought that it was no wonder people had thought it was him with all the paranoia and fear that was going about the place.

As he drifted away thinking of who the real Dolocher could be his face rested on the man who had winked at him this evening, the gentleman whose eyes tried to communicate something to him as he was taken to the prison; and in this face he saw something new, something that he was not sure he had seen earlier, but that he could see clearly now-that gentleman’s face turning up into a sneering smile. The smile of the Dolocher.

He would have to tell the Alderman about this man the first chance he got. A gentleman? Who would have thought such a thing possible and as he thought this he knew that the answer was no one, not even the Alderman could believe that. There would be no point in going to him with this story as it was more likely than not going to end up with Mullins in more trouble and being called a liar to add into the bargain. He would have to keep an eye out for this man himself and see what he could do.

Alderman James sat in the whisky cabin on Cook Street. He was alone at a table near the back sipping from a tin tumbler, the tables closest to him free as people recognised who he was and didn’t want him overhearing what they might be saying. He was quarter way through his jug when Edwards finally arrived.

“I was surprised that you asked to meet me here,” Edwards said looking about the room as he removed his cloak, “It’s not the kind of place I would associate with you Alderman.”

“Sit down and have a drink,” James said and Edwards looked at him oddly as he sat.

“You seem odd, gruff even Alderman,” he said

“That’s the least that these people have to worry about.”

“If you have asked me to come here to talk about our mutual friend, I am afraid I have no new information,” Edwards smirked.

“Is anything serious to you?” James said angrily “How can you call a vicious killer ‘our mutual friend’!”

“No Alderman. Nothing in this world is serious to me,” there was no smile this time.

James took another drink, and he felt the anger course in his blood.

“What is it with your type eh?” he said staring at Edwards, who was pouring himself a big drink from the jug. “You meet without a care in the world. You worship the Devil; the very being that will do his best to destroy all mankind and condemn us to eternal fire.”

“You make the destruction of mankind sound like a bad thing,” Edwards said.

“Don’t be flippant tonight Mr. Edwards.”

“Something has definitely gotten into you tonight.”

“I’ve had enough of evil, enough to fill me forever.”

“What evil do you mean?” James took from his tumbler again and was silent for a moment.

“What does it mean to be decent?” he said finally looking up at his drinking partner.

“It means nothing,” Edwards said

“How can you say that. To be decent means you treat people well, you are fair; you do right even when it’s easier to do wrong.”

“So how many ‘decent’ people do you suppose there are?” Edwards asked scornfully.

“The point is not how many there are, but how many people there are that want to be, or would be if they had the chance. People steal because they have nothing; they fight because they have nothing.”

“I know plenty of people who have more than I do who both steal and fight.”

“There are exceptions of course, but just think if all these people, who want to be decent, could be decent?”

“You think that everything would be dandy then do you?”

“Why not?”

“Because that is not how people are. People do things because they are bored, because they want what others have, because they want to do them.”

“No, I won’t believe that. Evil is what makes people do things and evil thrives where there is a lack of decency.”

“The evil is there, in the people. That’s where the indecency comes from.”

“You are not hearing me.”

“I think I am but I’m afraid you are wrong.”

“I am not wrong. Have you ever seen evil?”

“Only my share.”

“No, you haven’t, but I have. A while after that weaver’s riot one of the soldiers whose rifle I lowered tried to kill me. He couldn’t live with killing what he considered to be innocent people, and it drove him to try to kill me who had made him do it. Do you know what happened to that man?” Edwards shook his head. “I had him hanged.”

“And rightly so.”

“And that’s when I saw evil. It was when I looked in the mirror, and I knew that man died because he couldn’t live with what he had done, with what I had done. He was right to try to kill me and had I had my wits about me more fully when he tried I should have let him succeed. I killed him to punish him for my crime; that is evil,” James said loudly.

“That is human,” Edwards said, “You should lower your voice Alderman, I think you are not used to this poison they sell as whisky here.”

James knew he was drunk; he knew it as soon as he started to raise his voice. He finished his glass nonetheless and then stood up.

“Come on,” he said to Edwards

“Where are we going?”

“We’re going to look for ‘our mutual friend’.”

James felt the cold whoosh through his mouth and into his lungs, and he almost stumbled with the increased inebriation this shock caused him. Edwards grabbed him by the arm to steady him, but James shrugged him off. He was looking west along the road, and Edwards followed his gaze.

“Would you like to go to the scene of this evening’s crime?” he asked.

“Maybe,” James answered absently “I don’t know.”

“I doubt there will be any sign of the killer again tonight now that he had satisfied himself.”

“I was just thinking about the blacksmith.”

“What about him?”

“He has been doing the same thing for years. Going to work, coming to the taverns and cabins and then going home, all the while minding his own business and now because of a killer who has nothing to do with him he has been questioned twice and hauled to the prison.”

“Yes I saw him earlier being escorted by your soldiers.”

“His neighbours will be suspicious of him now even though he tried to help that poor girl who was killed tonight.”

“The people who live around here are ignorant and besides, they have short memories, something else will pique their interest or suspicion soon enough and they will forget all about him.”

They were silent for a moment, and James still looked in the same direction.

“Was there a letter about tonight?” Edwards asked.

“Letter?” James asked and something was triggering in him as he tried to remember what he knew about a letter.

“The letter from the Dolocher?” Edwards said emphatically.

“Oh, that letter” James mumbled “No, that was no letter from the killer. My man found the boy who delivered it this morning.”

“So who wrote it?”

“The boy’s mother.”

“I don’t understand,” Edwards said.

“The letter was to warn about a gang fight that took place on Saturday afternoon. The woman didn’t want her husband to be hurt as he had been corralled into fighting.”

“So she tried to let you know when the fight would be happening?”

“Yes.”

“But she underestimated the importance of a gang fight to everyone except herself.”

“And I thought it was about the killing.”

“Reasonable assumption and he did kill again on the night.”

“Pure chance,” James said angrily as he remembered the crying woman when he went to visit her home. Her husband had been badly wounded in the fight and wouldn’t be able to use his left hand again.

James yawned and stretched his back still looking in the direction where Mullins walked away when he left him earlier.

“I suppose you are right about it being pointless to look for the killer tonight,” he said wearily, his bed seeming so inviting now.

“I think so Alderman, best to get to bed and start afresh tomorrow with a clear head.”