The Dolocher (8 page)

When news began to spread about the attack on Mary Sommers; the same Mary Sommers who had witnessed Thomas Olocher’s crime, the same Mary Sommers who was instrumental in having him sentenced to death, many could not believe anything other than the rumours that abounded about his soul in the body of some beast looking for revenge. To many there could be no other explanation, all of those attacked so far had done something against Olocher, it couldn’t be a coincidence. How could an attacker have singled her out of all the women in Dublin if not for the reason that she was targeted? And who else would target a girl just turned fifteen if not The Dolocher?

When the soldiers were asking around about the houses to see if anyone had seen anything, there began to be something that might possibly be a lead. Though streets away from the attack there had been a man seen, a large man, walking in the rain with some kind of heavy black garment over his head. He had been in the Cook street area and when this was followed up more people had seen this same man enter Ushers Court. When the people of that place were asked, they had seen the man enter Dog and Duck Yard. Further questions yielded the name of Timothy Mullins as this same man, and it was said it was his leather apron that he had over his head when he came home that night. It was said that he was as drunk as a lord as he got to his door.

Was it usual for him to carry his apron about with him when he went drinking? The soldiers asked his neighbours. No was their answer, and this led them to their supposition that this was the black beast people had spoken of as The Dolocher. Someone had even noticed that when he got home that night there was blood running from his apron when he got to the door. The time of his arrival home was within ten minutes of the attack on Mary Sommers.

This was evidence enough to question Mullins about his whereabouts that evening. The officer stepped into Mullins home as his soldiers waited outside. Mullins knew that the soldiers had spoken to many people, and he was ready to answer all the same questions they had but he was not expecting the blunt question that came from the officer.

“Did you attack a woman last night?”

Mullins was stunned; his eyes opened wide with disbelief.

“No,” he stammered still reeling with the shock of the accusation.

“You came home last night with your apron over your head?” the officer said.

“Yeah, it was raining.”

“Was there blood on this apron?”

“No,” he was confused to this question, why would he think there was blood on it?

“Is this the apron?” the officer asked placing his hand on a leather apron on the table

“Yes.”

The officer picked it up and examined it.

“What is all this red stuff on it?” he asked and showed it to Mullins. Before he could see it properly he was nervous, the connection between the question of blood, an attack on a woman and now red stains on his apron tied together in his mind and he could feel guilt rising that he knew had place to.

“That’s just rust residue, I’m a blacksmith and metal gets on the apron the whole time. That’s what it’s for.” He was relieved when he saw the stains.

“Is any of it blood?”

“No, blood is not that colour, this is more orange.”

“How do you know what colour blood is?” the officer asked and again Mullins was surprised by his questions.

“I have bled before,” he answered hoping not to sound insolent.

“Of course,” the officer said and he put the apron down on the table. “Where were you last night?”

“I was in the whisky cab on Cook Street.”

“The what?”

“The whisky cabin on Cook Street”

“Oh ‘Cabin’” the officer had been making some point here but it was lost on Mullins. “What time did you leave?”

“About eleven I think.”

“You think?”

“Yes, I was a little drunk.” Mullins was embarrassed to say this but thought he should tell the truth.

“Drunk enough to attack a woman and then forget about it?”

“No never!” Mullins cried out. “You can ask the owner he will tell you I left at that time. I came straight home. It’s only a few minutes from door to door.”

“Why did you have your apron with you last night?”

“I was in a rush to deliver a piece to a customer in Hell and I still had it on as I ran out of the store, otherwise I was going to be late and I mightn’t have got paid.”

“You didn’t think to bring it home or back to the store before you went drinking?” the officer asked and Mullins knew it was purely to embarrass him.

“No,” he said looking at the ground. He was sure this was what the officer wanted to see.

“Did you see anyone on your way home?”

“Not a soul.”

“It was raining heavily,” the officer said and Mullins nodded. “Well, that will do for now but you may be questioned again when I file my report.”

“Ok”, Mullins answered.

“Good day”, the officer said, and he left the building. Mullins was at the door, and he saw the officer poke his foot at the rust stains on the ground just outside.

“That’s not the same colour as blood,” the officer smiled to him and he marched off followed by his troops.

Mullins went back inside, and he sat down at the big table. He looked at the rust stains on the apron; the rain had really brought them out worse than even before. The apron was rigid from being so wet and its weight much more than before. He picked at some of the deep orange flecks of dried residue, and he remembered the red liquid running off it onto the ground at his door last night, an image he had not remembered until just now. The lantern lights had given it a strange hue, changed the natural orange to a watery dull red, a flowing dull red. He put it down and went to his window and looked out. There were not many people around and who was there were long standing neighbours.

How could anyone think him capable of hurting a woman? Some of these very neighbours must have thought he had done it to tell the soldiers that there was blood running from his apron when he got home. It was sickening a thought that there was that much distrust in a small street like this, with all of them in the same boat, doing nothing other than trying to put food on the table from day to day. Who could think he could attack a woman? He had a little temper when drunk, and he’d had his fair share of fights with sailors or other men in the taverns and whiskey cabins, but that was no different to anyone else who went there. Who?

Mullins was seeing a customer out when Lord Muc came from across the road. He had been out there for about an hour, and he had been watching Mullins all the time. Mullins had looked back a few times, but there was no change in the face of the gang leader.

“What are you looking for?” Mullins said when he finally came over and entered the blacksmiths, there was an edge to his tone that he hadn’t fully intended but didn’t altogether regret either; it was more than likely he was going to be delivering bad news to this man anyway so why be pleasant at the outset?

“We need you,” Muc said

“For what?” Mullins asked -he wasn't sure what he was being asked for.

“To join.”

“To join!” Mullins laughed

“Yeah, there is another battle coming and I think with you on our side we can finish those Ormonde pricks off for good.”

“What difference to your little ‘army’ do you think I’d make?” Mullins mocked him, he had been annoyed by Muc’s usage of the term battle to describe the street fights the Liberty Boys and the Ormonde Boys engaged in periodically. There was nothing of the honour of battle involved in these vicious tit for tat brawls.

“I saw you fight one night a few weeks ago on Cook Street. You were out of your head drunk, but you still managed to take out four guys all about the same size as yourself,” Muc said with a sneer that may have been intended as a camaradic smile.

“Fighting in taverns and mindless street thuggery are two different things. People go to taverns just to have fights sometimes, to get the anger out of them, to rid them of poisons,” Mullins said and wondered was he describing himself or the people he fought with.

“Fighting is fighting and you can get rid of all the poison you want in one of our fights,” Muc said excited now, a flick of life animating his dark eyes as he spoke of his passion.

Mullins looked at him, and he could almost sense something sexual in the chemistry talking about fighting had aroused in his visitor. This was a man who didn’t rid himself of anything by fighting, but who took something on by doing it. Did he think it was some great strength giver or elixir?

“I’m not interested,” Mullins said and he turned back to his forge.

“That might not be a wise choice,” Muc said.

Mullins turned to face him.

“Is that supposed to be a threat?” he spread his shoulders as wide as he could and stepped closer to Muc, who gave a good four inches on the blacksmith. Muc didn’t seem fazed at all, and though he didn’t want to look away from his eyes, Mullins could sense that his fists were balled and ready to be used.

“Not at all. I just don’t think you are making the right decision.” Mullins didn’t respond this time. “You know the way you feel when you fight? Well, this is a hundred times more intense and what’s more is the man you are fighting has set out to fight and so accepts anything that comes his way,” Muc’s eyes were wild now and he was clearly remembering something he had done before. “You can kill and there is no victim, only a willing combatant who would do the same to you if he could.”

There was something almost hypnotic in his eyes and the way he spoke and Mullins was sure that many a lost and hungry man had been roped into this gang with that very same speech, but he was still not interested.

“I fight to blow off steam the odd time not because I’m violent. I have no desire to kill or be killed by anyone.”

“I should have known,” Muc said, “you only like killing women.”

“If you ever say anything like that to me again it will be you I’ll be killing!” Mullins shouted at him but Lord Muc had already turned his back and was walking out and Mullins could hear him chuckle at the threat as he waved a dismissive hand in the air as he passed under the door frame.

Mullins was angry now as he knew that it wasn't just his neighbours who thought him capable of attacking a women but the rumour had spread all over the Liberties by now and there would be no shortage of people who would be willing to believe it. He just couldn’t believe that people could think this of him, who did they think he was if not the blacksmith who for years has done all they have asked of him?

For the rest of that day, he worked hard and was gruff with any customer who happened to come in. He didn’t want to see anyone and he was blaming them all for how he was feeling. Faces of neighbours and people he saw everyday kept coming to mind and he could feel their sneer as they looked down on him and called him killer behind his back. He could feel a swell of violence come up in him and he wished that Lord Muc would come back now and try to goad him some more so that he could vent his rage on that ugly smarmy face.

He got more angry as he knew that Lord Muc would only be delighted to know that he had caused such a reaction in him; a reaction that he would see as proof that Mullins was who Muc said he was and a step closer to unleashing that same poison he had spoken of. He wondered did Lord Muc even want him in the gang or did he just want to see him erupt in an orgy of violence that would reverberate and mix with the undertones of pain and suffering that spread its dark flow over this city. Could he be what people thought even when he felt so different to that view? Was he violence? Was Dublin violence? There is a killer or wild animal on the loose and yet there is still the everyday violence of life to contend with. Did the Dolocher grow out of this same city of violence?

Alderman James was sitting at the same table Kate had lunched at in the dining room at Mr. Edwards’s house. They had just enjoyed a large dinner and Edwards was drinking brandy and James coffee.

“Do you lot ever stop drinking alcohol?” James smiled at him.

“Not if we can help it,” Edwards laughed back, “The world can be a dull place without it.”

“You’ve heard I’m sure by now of the Sommers girl being attacked?” James asked knowing full well that Edwards did and probably knew more than he did about it.

“Indeed,” Edwards replied quaffing his drink, “I was in the vicinity when it occurred.”

“You saw it?” James asked sitting forward, and Edwards smiled,

“No, no, I was on Francis Street in one of our club houses when it happened.”

“You heard it then?”

“No, when you are at a Hellfire gathering you don’t hear anything that goes on outside I can assure you,” he laughed.

“Well, anyway, you are aware no doubt of this ridiculous rumour in the lower classes about the soul of Thomas Olocher being responsible for the attacks?”

“I have, and to be fair to them, you can see why a person with no education would believe such a thing.”

“Yes I suppose,” James agreed, “Now with this attack on the witness who sent him down, it is all but gospel truth over in the Liberties and Hell and spreading outside those areas as well.”

“I can imagine.”

“We have been getting reports of sightings of all kinds of animals all over the place in the last few days,” James said scornfully “There was even a report of a huge black elephant!”

“How do you think all this fear will manifest itself?” Edwards asked seriously when he stopped chuckling about the elephant.

“I don’t know, but I have been thinking about what you said the other night about it being an animal come in on a ship.”

“That was just idle talk.”

“Yes I know, but idle talk is how gossip starts. I have extra patrols near the docks, but I have asked them to be as discreet as possible.”

“You think if that rumour starts there will be a riot against the ships?”

“I do.”

“Well, you and I both know that there will be an explosion of some kind when the people get scared enough but it is often difficult to guess in what form that will take.”

James thought about this as he sipped more of the thick bitter coffee. He was doing what he could to redeem his name and this riot that he could feel coming was going to have to be put down somehow and that would probably mean the army again and he may be forced into the same position as before, only this time it will be the scared and not the angry who were rioting and they were a different kettle of fish altogether. He had to catch whoever was responsible as soon as possible.

“What do you think of this blacksmith?” James asked and as expected Edwards knew who he was talking about.

“Timothy Mullins,” he said “I don’t see it. I went to his house and saw the red at his door, clearly rust and his story about a delivery to a client in Hell is true as well, I have checked that out. He left the pub and got home in what seems to be a five minute window which would be about right for the walk he had to do. I actually have my own suspicions about who it might have been.”

James perked up at this; his hopes raised at once by this man who seemed always to know everything before he did.

“Who?”

“In the course of my questioning I came across another piece of information which I also followed up.”

“What was it?”

“Someone left the cabin just before the blacksmith and the direction they went was not the direction home for this person.”

“Who?”

“Someone you know well who has a propensity for violence,” Edwards hinted, James could see he was enjoying this.

For a moment James thought he meant a gentleman who was liberal with his fists after a few drinks and he racked his brain trying to think who it might be but then he realised that no one he knew would frequent such a place as a whiskey cabin on Cook Street. It must be a criminal who was well known to him.

“There are many criminals well known to me who could have been there that night.”

“Yes but this one fits very well with the crimes committed.”

“Tell me man!”

“Lord Muc,” Edwards smiled

“The Liberty Boys leader?” It seemed unlikely. Lord Muc loved violence, but he liked it in the pitched sense on open ground and with his gang around him. He couldn’t see him skulking around at night and attacking with stealth; he was too boisterous for that.

“That’s him yes,” Edwards answered. “He left the cabin about ten minutes before Mullins. Lord Muc lives in Schoolhouse Lane which would mean that he would turn left when he left the cabin on Cook Street, but I have it on good authority that he turned right and then went up New Row.”

“Good authority?”

“One of our lads was on the way to the meet on Francis Street and saw him.”

“And who was this?”

“He is above suspicion Alderman and as such there is no need to use his name.”

“Lord Muc has not been questioned as far as I know,” James said.

“He fits the bill in a couple of ways I think. He is violent, sneaky, he was drunk at the time and walking the streets in terrible weather. Do you know what Muc is the Irish for by the way?”

“No.”

“Pig,” Edwards smiled.

“You don’t say!” James said.

“Yes, it seems crude but apparently he has worked with pigs in the past, and that is where he got the moniker he goes by. He would probably have access to pig body parts and hides, and he could be using them as a disguise to deflect the rumours to the gossip about Olocher” Edwards said almost seeming to muse out loud.

“I’ll have someone talk to him,” James said.

“It is only a slight suspicion Alderman and one which I don’t believe is true; in fact, I would be quite disappointed if it were true.”

“Then why tell me?” James said, annoyed now by the playful attitude Edwards was always adopting.

“It could be right, the circumstantial evidence is all there and even if it is not true, it will start new rumours.”

“What good is that?”

“With this blacksmith and now Lord Muc being questioned seriously about these crimes the rumour mill will steer away from wild horror stories of demon pigs and focus on evil men with evil intent; something that the general populace is not all that afraid of,” Edwards smiled

“And when they are not afraid anymore the chances of a riot diminish accordingly?”

“Exactly Alderman. This is what you call a win win situation.”

James sat back in his chair, and he wondered if there was ever anything in Edwards’ life that wasn’t a win for him. He didn’t like the network this man had for getting information, and he was always keeping the names of his Hellfire Club friends out of affairs. They were a wild lot, and he would not have been all that surprised to find them responsible for a lot more than they got credit for.

The riot had to be avoided at all costs, or else people were going to die. He was going to have to order that people die. His mind jumped from this to Lord Muc, and he thought of the famous elephant dissection in Temple Bar over a hundred years ago. Not many of the lower classes would know anything about that, but he could only imagine what would happen if people started to believe there was a killer animal of that size on the prowl at night.

This riot had to be avoided at all costs. He would have to go to the streets himself and catch this killer. That was the only was he could be both sure that it was done and sure that he could perhaps redeem himself in the eyes of those people he so sought.