Shadow of the Dolocher

by European P. Douglas

  "I'll go with her," James said holding back a soldier who was about to get up on the wagon. The young soldier stopped and looked at the Alderman with surprise, but didn’t dare question him. "Go ask people what they saw," James said. The soldier nodded and went to the people gathered as the horse and cart trundled away from the scene.

  It was still dull and early, and the streets were quiet. When James thought they were far away enough from the prison, he looked about and seeing that the street was empty and the driver was looking dead ahead sleepily, he lifted the sheet and looked in at the body to locate the wound. Once he found it, he put his hand inside and rummaged as gently as he could. It was very hard in there and had he not already known, he would never have guessed by the feel that his hand was in the stomach cavity of a person.

  The whole thing felt odd, and as such, he couldn't be sure that he had not felt something that was out of place. He was going to have to go into the mortuary with the body and use a lantern to look inside. He hoped that he could do this before the doctor arrived so that he wouldn't have to explain what he was doing. The fewer people who knew about this, the better.

  Still he was resigned to the fact that it was going to come out; things like this always did. People were going to be frightened, and they would jump to all sorts of conclusions. There was no doubt that the Dolocher was going to be recalled and rumours of his return to the real world killing again were unavoidable. It would be just like when everyone believed that Thomas Olocher was committing the Dolocher murders from beyond the grave. It seemed to be so easy to rattle these people; they were willing to believe in almost anything.

  The cart clattered over the cobbles at the rear gate to the mortuary at the barracks. It was very quiet here, and the sun was rising and casting a strange glow over the square courtyard. Doctor Adams was standing at the back door smoking a pipe, and he looked on the cart with interest as it pulled up. Two large dogs were stationed on either side of him like a royal bodyguard. The doctor whistled lowly, and the two dogs scurried off across the courtyard to a small construct that must have housed them.

  "What have we got here, Alderman," he said with a raised eyebrow on seeing who it was with the body. It was clear he was surprised to see him.

  "A girl murdered and left on the street," James replied.

  "Do you know who she is?" James knew he meant personally, but he answered as though this was all about policing.

  "Not yet, but I think we will in a matter of days." The doctor came over and lifted the sheet to look at the body.

  "She's been dead a few days," he said in mild surprise, he looked questioningly at James.

  "I thought so too. She was dumped at the walls of Newgate."

  "Another one at Newgate? Dolocher country eh?" Adams chuckled. James frowned, gripped with annoyance by the uttering of that name. Already someone was making casual comparisons.

  The body was brought inside, stripped, and laid out on a well-lit table in a small room where the doctor and the Alderman looked it over.

  "There appears to be nothing but the main wound," the doctor said professionally having looked over the entire body.

  "I noticed that too," James said. Adams leaned over and peered into the wound, placing a scalpel inside and pushing things around a little so he could see better. He had a skilful hand, and James could see his years of battlefield hospital experience had not dulled his sensitivity with the dead.

  "Look at this," Adams said, and James leaned in for a better view. "Do you see all the serrations; here and here, and the same on the other side there?" Adams pointed.

  "Yes," James nodded.

  "Those are all the results of different stab wounds. It looks like this woman was repeatedly stabbed in the abdomen and then this whole section of her body was removed so as to make it look like one giant gaping hole."

  "Like a massive bite?" James said nodding in the realisation that this is what it resembled.

  "Exactly."

  James knew what this meant for the rumour mill, and he was surprised that he hadn't seen the similarity to a bite earlier. He didn't want to dwell on this, and he looked back inside the wound.

  "Is there anything else?"

  "Like what?" Adams asked in surprise, he must have thought this was enough already. James wondered was it obvious he was looking for something specific.

  "Is there anything in the cavity that shouldn't be there?" James asked. Adams looked at him askance and then he looked into the wound and poked around a little more.

  "There doesn't seem to be anything," he said looking back to James. "Were you expecting anything in particular?"

  "No, nothing specific." James looked over the young woman again, and he hoped sincerely that she had died quickly, though he doubted she had. He could feel the amulet in his pocket, and he ran his fingers over the grooved design on it. What did it mean?

  "Did the man who was killed in the tower come here or was he just buried?" James asked. There had been no leads as to who this man was, and the men who had brought him in had been so blind drunk that they had no clue either, they only knew that they picked him up somewhere near the prison.

  "He was here briefly, but there was no mystery there," Adams said

  "Was there anything unusual found in his case?"

  "On the body?"

  "Yes."

  "No. I must say these are odd questions Alderman."

  "I know," James said, and he left, thanking the doctor on his way out the door.

  Chapter 8

  Thin April clouds framed the door as James looked out to the street, taking in some of the chill air he'd felt through his window. He liked to stand on the steps of the house sometimes in the mornings before the street was really alive. It was quiet and peaceful here most of the time, and it was nice to be in a near silent outdoor setting in the middle of a city sometimes. He breathed in and enjoyed the cold suck into his cheeks and lungs. He leaned against the railing, closed his eyes and listened. In the distance, he could hear the clattering hooves of a horse and the rattle of the wheels of a coach going somewhere. Closer to home some birds chirped from atop the houses.

  As he was about to go back inside he wiped his feet on the mat and looking down, he noticed something protruding from underneath it. He leaned down and lifted the corner revealing an envelope there. Looking around and seeing no one he picked it up and examined it. It was a fine envelope, but it bore no distinctive markings. There was nothing on it save his own name as the addressee. It was not sealed, and he pulled the single sheet from within and let it fall out to full length from its foldings. It read as follows:

  Dear Alderman,

  By now you will have realised that I am back. I have killed as before to set myself fresh in your mind, but now I'll have to deviate from the past so as not to make this too easy for you. I will kill again soon. It could be any person in any part of the city. I will kill at my old haunts from time to time, but I can't let you know when those will be. I have sketched an image from our shared past on the reverse of this page. I hope you like it.

  Yours,

  The Dolocher.

  James was stunned, and he looked about the street once more, hoping against hope to see some mildly mocking eyes or some colleague enjoying this joke, but there was nothing. He flipped the paper over and was shocked to see a rendering of the body of Thomas Olocher as he had seen it that morning being feasted upon by the feral pigs of the city. It was detailed and gruesome and instantly brought James back to that time and place. He folded the letter up and went back inside to his study, closing all doors behind him as he went.

  At his desk, James took out the letter once more, and placed it flat on the surface. He then opened a drawer and took out a folder filled with letters. He ran through them quickly, letting the ones he was finished with fall to the floor as he searched for a match in the writing or even the paper, and looked out for small sketches that sometimes people put in their letters to him. He moved as though time were against him a
nd when he got to the final letter the floor and desktop were a mess of papers and envelopes. He'd not seen a hand like it nor paper exactly the same.

  Flipping the paper over he looked at the image once more. It was clear that this person had been there, had seen the body as it was that morning. It was far too accurate to have been by chance or imagination. His mind began to run through who would have been there that day. There were plenty of names that crossed his mind, but the body was there overnight before the soldiers arrived. Countless numbers of people could have seen it, and no one could ever know how many for sure.

  James picked up the envelope and looked at it once more. He squeezed it to be fully sure that there was nothing inside and then he separated the folds and looked inside; there was something there!

  There was another sketch inside the envelope, on the paper itself. He couldn't quite make it out, so he brought it close to the lamplight and spied inside. He couldn't be sure, but it really looked like a drawing of the amulet he'd found inside the body of the murder victim of at the prison gates. He tore the paper carefully and continued to look inside to see that he was not ripping other important evidence until finally, he had the sketch on its own separated from the rest. It was a picture of the amulet, there was no mistaking it.

  He fell back in his chair, his body falling limp. His worst fears had been realised. This was all related to the Dolocher, and he could see the panic and fear from two years ago already beginning to rise in front of him. Someone was acting in the name of the terror that had stalked the streets of the Liberties. Not Cleaves, but the idea that he had managed to evoke in the public mind. James could feel the pressure rising in his head, and he put the sketch down and closed his eyes to it. It was only a matter of time now before the next murder, and then the rumours would begin once more to take hold, and God only knew where it would go from there.

  Now he knew he would have to locate Edwards. He needed him to find out what this amulet business was all about. His searches to date had been fruitless, but now he was more desperate, and he resolved that he would not sleep until he found him.

  James started by writing a letter that he would leave at Edwards' home if he could not find him there. In it, he would say that there was a new case like the Dolocher one and that there was a strange devilish amulet involved that he might know something about. James knew this would be enough to bring Edwards out of the woodwork and pique his curiosity.

  When he wrote that letter, he called for some coffee to be brought to his study, and he made up a list of the soldiers and people who would have been involved in the Thomas Olocher find. He didn't know the names of the soldiers off hand, but there would be a record of it at the barracks, and he would be able to ask the doctors there if they had remembered anyone there who shouldn't have been. He knew that the chances of yielding anything this way were low, but he had to give it a go. He knew from experience that you also never knew when blind luck was going to see you through something. He didn’t think it would be wise to ask questions of the locals where the body had been found; this would lead to no end of speculation, with wild assumptions and rumours spreading throughout the Liberties in a flash.

  The coffee was bitter, and he drank little of it. There was a sick feeling in him that he'd not felt since Cleaves was put to the gallows. How could someone be so sick and twisted as to want to emulate the madness and barbarity that went on back then? It was true that there had been murders committed since and some as violent and evil, but to wage a campaign; to be proud of it to the point of making a game of it? What kind of person could do this?

  Again, names and faces of the Dolocher times came back to him; the old gaoler Brick; the blacksmith Mullins; the gang leader Lord Muc- actually Alderman James hadn't heard much about Lord Muc in recent times- this was unusual in itself.

  The gang warfare had all but ceased, and nothing else Muc had been involved in had ever passed James' desk. He might be worth looking into; there was something in him that sang out violence and blood lust, and James was sure that he couldn't have just turned a corner and left all that behind him.

  The thoughts of patrolling dark streets once more unsettled James and he shivered at it. At least it was nearly summer, and the nights wouldn't be as they were during the other killings. He wondered again about Edwards, and he called down for his coach to be readied to leave in half an hour. He recalled that he once had his suspicions of Edwards himself in relation to the murders. He would have to find him now and use his help once more, but the blasphemies and diabolic talk that emitted from Edwards always left James with a dirty feeling. Better the Devil you know crossed his mind as he went down to his carriage.

  Chapter 9

  The Liberties and the surrounding environs were swept up in the kind of hysteria not seen since the early days of the Dolocher murders. The stories were out, and the connections were being made. Enough people in the area had seen and heard about one or other of the three deaths located around 'The Black Dog,' and now all were common knowledge.

  There was no mistaking the similarity to the killings of 1788. A man had died in the tower, just like Thomas Olocher; another was killed at the gate, like the first guard a few years ago; and a third was killed at the walls, the same place as the second guard back then. It was almost a perfect copy.

  Some people heard that the murders were carried out in different places and the bodies then transported to the prison, but this was more frightful in their eyes as the imagined beast stalking the night carrying bodies about could be anywhere.

  Even though all had heard about Cleaves, and how he had been the Dolocher there was still enough doubt and superstition in these people that the notion of a beast was able to gain traction again. This was especially the case when the last victim had a massive bite taken from her abdomen!

  Once again people ventured the streets at night fearful of meeting this creature. They started to take the longer, busier routes to get to where they needed to be. Only the bravest, drunkest or most foolhardy travelled the thin alleys alone after dark.

  Everyone knew that the next murder was imminent, and tensions rose in line with this. Strangers to the neighbourhood were looked on with suspicion and children were kept close to home during the day.

  The places where it was known Dolocher murders had been committed before were vacant and quiet, and in the taverns and coffee houses, revellers argued about the order of the Dolocher murders and where the next one was likely to occur. There were those who being sensible opined that, of course, this was the work of another man, a mere mortal just as Cleaves had been, but they were shouted down or ignored.

  It was easier for the uneducated masses to assume that something sinister prowled around at night rather than to think one of those who walked amongst them during the day was the vicious killer by night.

  Chapter 10

  Mary Sommers rearranged the stock on her cart, separating the vegetables that had been dropped or moved into the wrong areas, and making the whole mess look more appealing to her customers. It was near the end of the day, and the light was fading. She would give it fifteen more minutes and then start to pack up for the day, she decided. She went back behind the cart to the seller's position just as a tall man approached from the lanes of Templebar. He was straight-shouldered, and she could tell he was a soldier, probably an officer and certainly a gentleman in civilian clothes with a tall hat and walking stick.

  He stood at the cart and looked over the food and then looked up at Mary. She looked down, both afraid of making eye contact with gentlemen and also because of her shame at her scars; the reminders for all to see what the Dolocher had done to her.

  "Can I help sir?" she asked timidly.

  "Not with vegetables, but perhaps in another way," he said. He was definitely an officer; his voice had that commanding tone to it that she had heard as orders were barked in the streets at soldiers sometimes. The difference here was the way he was using his voice, he was almost jolly in tone.

&nbs
p; "How do you mean, Sir?"

  "I'll come straight out with it, girly," he said with authority. "My name is Spencer, and I am a painter. I would like to use you as a subject for a painting."

  "Me!" was the only comprehensible utterance that came out of Mary's mouth amongst a torrent of half words and sounds.

  "You have a unique face, one that I am very interested in as a painter," he said nodding. Mary blushed at this, embarrassed by her scars being highlighted. "I know you went through a terrible thing, but from what I can see you came through it very well and have managed to get on with your life. There is great strength in you, and I can see it in your face. I wish I had some men like you under my command!" he laughed here at his own joke and Mary smiled shyly.

  "I don't think anyone would be interested in a painting of me, Sir."

  "Nonsense, I'm interested, and I know plenty of others who would be too." Mary didn't say anything for a few moments. "I'll pay you very well, and I'll keep the sessions short; say about forty-five minutes a time?" She looked at him.

  It was true that she could always do with more money, who couldn't? It had been hard since Kate moved out, and Sarah and she had struggled a little since and hadn't found a suitable sharer. Kate still gave them a little money when she could, and she thought Tim wouldn't notice, but things were still tough. She wondered how much this man might be offering, but she was very much afraid to ask in case he should be offended.

  "If you are frightened of being alone with a man let me assure you that my servants will be on hand and soldiers come to me throughout the day with messages about all kinds of rubbish?" he offered.

  "I don't know, Sir" she said, she was afraid of being alone with him but that hadn't crossed her mind until he brought it up. She wondered where he lived. Would she have to walk home in the dark after these sessions? "I have to work here during the day."

  "Every day?" he asked.