Shadow of the Dolocher Read online

  Shadow of the Dolocher

  By

  European P. Douglas

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  By the same Author:

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  By the same Author:

  The Dolocher

  Rattleyard

  Rampike

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  Copyright © 2017 European P. Douglas

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1508803870

  ISBN-13: 978-1508803874

  Chapter 1

  The sticky tangle of bloodied hay dangled from what served as a bed in the cell tower of 'The Black Dog' prison. The smell, sickly sweet and warm, punctured now by the harsh tang of urine as the guards searched through the hay for something that could have slit the prisoner's throat. The body outside the cell at the top of the stairs with a sheet pulled over it. It had been stripped and probed, clothes checked separately, but nothing had been found before he had been removed from the cell. Alderman James watched in silence from the doorway. He studied the drops of blood on the stone floor that led to where the body had been found in a pool of blood. There couldn't have been all that much blood left in the man.

  "Nothing in there, sir," one of the guards said after they had been at the hay and rotted frame for a few minutes. The Alderman looked around the room; it was spare of any other furnishings.

  "You,” he said to one of them, “check the whole wall here; look for cracks or holes or loose stone where something might be hidden." Then to the other, "Go downstairs and search in the space below that window; perhaps he dropped it outside when he cut himself." The guards looked at one another and then did as they were told. James could feel their unease because he shared it.

  The blood led from the window to where they body had lain so searching the walls was unlikely to yield anything; the man hardly slit his throat and then hid the weapon like that. If it were anywhere, it would be outside on the ground or else in the hay, missed by the men. Soon the guard had finished searching the wall, and he turned to James for further instruction.

  "Call down and see if the other guard has found anything," James said. The guard went to the window and called out,

  "Arthur!"

  "What?" came the reply.

  "Did you find anything?"

  "No, there's nothing here." He turned back into the room from the window.

  "There's nothing down there," he said to James.

  "Burn this bed," James said to him. The guard looked back at him in confusion. "Burn it here in this room," James said, but still the guard stood there as if not knowing what to do. "Take that lantern from the wall there and burn the bed; don’t worry, there is nothing else here to catch flame, and once we stand back, we'll be unharmed." The guard went to the top of the stairs, took the lantern and brought it into the room. He looked at the Alderman once more, who nodded at him in encouragement, and then lit the hay.

  They both stood back in the hallway and watched the hay burn and then the wood frame it lay on too. Singed hair smell flooded the air, and the blood burned black and bubbled nastily before beginning to disappear. They had to fan the smoke back into the room towards the window to stop it going into their eyes or overwhelming them. It didn't take long for there to be nothing but a smouldering mess of dust and sinews of scorched hay on the floor. The air began to feel fresher as the wind came in and the smoke dissipated. The ash was sand coloured and formed a small pile.

  "Sweep that up and go through it again for a weapon; it could be something very small so be sure to sweep up little sections at a time and run the ash through a sieve before it goes into a bucket. You can get the gaoler to let me know if you find anything," James said, and he set off down the stairs.

  At the bottom of the stairs he looked about for a moment; it had been a long time since he was inside this place. It hadn't changed in the slightest. Apart from the gaoler of course. The last one, Brick, had been killed by Cleaves- the last of the Dolocher murders. That whole mess had originated in this very place with the suicide -in the very room James had just been in- of the murderer Thomas Olocher, in very similar circumstances to the new death last night. He could only hope that word of this wouldn't get out; he knew full well the way these local people thought. They would be howling about the return of the Dolocher before the end of the day, and he didn't need that fear and tension rising in the community again. Things had been relatively calm for the last two years, and that was how he would like it to remain.

  James looked down to the doors of 'The Nunnery,'- that basement room where streetwalkers were housed in the gaol. It was dark inside, and he couldn't see anyone in there. Cabinteely, the current gaoler, appeared from the back corridor and greeted the Alderman. He was a man of about five feet eleven inches, slim and stiff looking, his blonde hair and smiling eyes belied his dour career.

  "Alderman, did you find anything?" he asked gaily.

  "No Marcus, but I've one of your guards doing a last search."

  "Well he can take his time; it's not very busy at the moment."

  "Is there no one in 'The Nunnery' tonight?" Marcus Cabinteely smiled at the question.

  "There's some fleet going out tomorrow, and all the women had their fines paid this morning, so they're out. Most of them belonged to that French one, what's her name?"

  "I know who you are speaking of," James said dryly. "Has anybody been in asking about the dead man?"

  "No, but we didn't even know his name, so if they had, we wouldn't have known who they were talking about, anyway."

  "You didn't know his name?" Alderman was sure he had heard the name Trevor in relation to the prisoner.

  "No, he was brought in by some of the parish watch lads, drunk as anything and kicki
ng and screaming. He was put up in the tower to sleep it off more than anything else."

  "Which watchmen brought him in?"

  "I'm not sure, but I heard they were almost as drunk as he was." This was nothing unusual; the watchmen were always missing from their posts or drunk or asleep at them. It was a wonder anyone paid them at all for all the good they did. As far as James could see, they made little or no difference to safety at night. "I can probably find out for you," Cabinteely offered.

  "Yes, that would be good if you can. I’m going home now, but if your man upstairs finds anything, or if you get those watchmen's names send a boy over to my house with a letter. You know where I live?"

  "I do, and if I didn't I'm sure the letter carriers would," the gaoler smiled.

  The Alderman said goodbye and went to the gate where he was let out onto Back Lane. He stood looking over the area on this quiet night, if night it could still be called.

  The Dolocher was on his mind, and he recalled the two murders committed not fifty feet apart from where he now stood. In both, the victims were guards of this very prison, savaged to death. He still couldn't believe the strength Cleaves held in that frame of his; James wouldn't have thought even a man twice his size could have been so powerful. He shook his head and looked up at the tower. All that was in the past. The dead man up there is the present.

  The light was growing and the silhouette of the tower on the new morning was mesmerising, looking as though the tower was swaying slightly against the slow-moving clouds of predawn.

  James decided to walk home, and he asked the carriage driver to trot along beside him in case he changed his mind. The walk would do him good, he thought. He was ever restless on nights when he thought about the Dolocher case. The similarities tonight were scary, the same room and the same cause of death. The people of the Liberties would have a field day with that.

  These were the people he had sought to protect. He had made them his priority a long time ago when he learned from his own youthful mistakes in the position he held. He thought of all the nights he had spent walking the streets at the time of the killings; how he had put his own life in danger on a few occasions to chase the killer. In the end, it had been the blacksmith Mullins who got all the credit, but he had simply been in the right place at the right time. James felt cheated by this, he was only streets away when it happened, and he couldn't shake the belief that if not for Mullins, he would have caught Cleaves that night. Then the people would know he cared for them and understand. He smiled at his rising anger; this was all silly, wishful thinking.

  It had been two years since then, and things had been quiet. Well, quiet in comparison; there was no shortage of people willing to do bad things. There was also plenty of talk of rebellion these days, and that kept his office and the soldiers busy. Still, the thought came back to him about catching the Dolocher. He needed to sleep, to forget about the past.

  Chapter 2

  The sky was dark and threatened rain as Kate got to the market stall. Mary Sommers, her friend and former housemate, was working the stall this morning and there was a brisk trade. Kate caught her eye, and they exchanged smiling nods while Mary finished with the few customers who milled about her.

  "Well, you look busy," Kate said when they could finally talk.

  "It's well this morning; I think it's the dark clouds all day," Mary said looking up at the sky. "It gets people out early for fear of getting caught in a downpour."

  "Same as myself," Kate laughed. As she was talking, she saw that there was a new ship coming up the river to moor at the market harbour. In her previous life, she would have known about this ship coming in and would have been here waiting for it, trying to sell herself to the men on board to make her living. How she was glad those days were over now. She hadn't thought of it as being so bad a life at the time, but now that she no longer had to live as a streetwalker, or in Madame Mel's brothel, she felt ashamed that she ever did such things.

  "You've not long missed Sarah; she's gone on home to start a fire for later," Mary said interrupting the flow of her thoughts.

  Kate felt the first drops of rain on her cheek as the new ship docked at the nearest point to the vegetable stall.

  "Looks like the rain is finally started," she said. Mary looked up too.

  "Well, you can't live in Ireland and complain about the rain."

  "I better get going all the same and get this stew on for Tim."

  "You should call in some evening soon to catch up," Mary said.

  "I'd like that; talk to Sarah and see what night suits you both and I'll pop back tomorrow to see you."

  "I'm sure any night will do, but I'll talk to you later."

  Kate said goodbye, and she walked across the square at the docks of Templebar. She was always proud of herself that she was able to come back to this place so readily after she had been attacked and nearly lost her life here. She would often look at the fish sellers and the delivery carts and thank them all silently for the mess they made that had Cleaves slip that night when he attacked her making possible her escape. Mary had been one of the victims too, and Kate knew she had not been able to pass by the street where her encounter had taken place. As far as Kate knew, Mary never went out after dark on her own to this day.

  Kate was lost in thought as she went up the narrow cobbled lanes of Templebar and she was shaken and frightened when a heavy arm landed on her shoulder and pulled her against the body of a man who reeked of drink.

  "There's my favourite flower!" he said in a loud drunk voice that drew glances from people who were passing. "Where have you been? I've looked for you so many times at the..."

  "I don't do that work anymore," Kate snapped before he said the word brothel. She shrugged his arm off her, and he nearly fell with this loss of support. He looked at her as though she had wounded him and she tried to place him from her past.

  "You're a terrible loss to the profession," he said, and he bowed so low that almost fell forward on his head. Kate didn't know if he was trying to be sweet or if this was intended as an insult, but suddenly she recalled this man. His usual voice and then his normal, sober face from before came back to her. She remembered him; he'd much been changed by drink and night living by the looks of him. He hadn't been a handsome man, but he was not so ugly as now, but he'd a nice way about him with the girls, and he had always tipped well. She couldn't for the life of her remember his name.

  "Thank you, I have to go now," she said and rushed off as fast as she could through the crowds.

  "A flower!" she heard him call out to her and it brought a smile to her face. She felt sorry for him now, for what he had become in the short space of time since she stopped being a streetwalker. This was the type of meeting she would never be able to tell Tim about; he was still very troubled by her past, and she was never to speak of it or the people she knew through it while he was in earshot.

  At first, Kate had been reluctant to leave the profession on a purely financial basis. She didn't think Tim's blacksmith shop would bring in enough for the two of them, but he had proved her wrong. Now she had nothing to do most days but errands and looking after her husband. She would have liked to work at something but it was a sore spot with him, and she brought it up very infrequently.

  She loved him very dearly, however, and she could put up with these things for that sake. Deep down she knew that he only wanted her to be happy. She knew that it had been hard for him to accept what she had been, and she could only imagine what must go through his head when he wondered if he knew men who had been with her. She had been coy with him and told him that it rarely went that far; that most of what went on in the brothels was mundane compared to the stories that came out of them. She knew that he had never been to a mAdams house, but she doubted he believed that nothing went on there at all.

  Still, they were happy in the transparent lies they told one another. She did not believe for a second that Tim ever got a black eye from mishandling equipment in the shop or some other
type of mishap. He was violent at times, and she knew he always would be. He had never displayed anything of this toward her, but she knew that when he went out to the whiskey cabins, it wasn't always just for a drink. People had all sorts of things inside them that needed to vent now and then, and Kate was happy to get along with things with this frame of mind.

  She realised too late that she hadn't started home in a way whereby she could have dropped into the blacksmith's on her way, and with the rain threatening she didn't want to chance it now. She was sure to be drenched if she attempted it; that was the kind of luck she had. As she moved hurriedly away from Templebar, there were fewer and fewer people on the streets, nothing close to deserted but she could feel and hear the difference, and she raised her head a little, not so cautious about meeting eyes with an old customer here. Heavy raindrops splatted against the ground intermittently around her.

  Kate heard a horse and carriage behind her a little, and she turned to look at it. It was unusual to see one down this particular narrow street. The horse was large and chestnut coloured, and its coat gleamed in the light. The carriage was black, sprung, and very polished, and she wondered who might be in it and what business a person with that kind of money would have here. She stepped to the side of the road to let it pass. She felt the hot breath of the horse as it sidled by slowly, grunting a little and then she noticed that its gait was slowing. The door of the coach was beside her now, and it opened a little. Kate realised that she had stopped walking, and she knew then who it was in the coach.

  "Do you want a lift? The rain is going to come down before you get home," Mr. Edwards said smiling down at her.

  "No, I'm fine thank you," Kate replied, getting her senses back. She was about to walk away when she saw that the horse's head was tilting to the left and it leaned in a way that stopped her from passing. She looked back the way she'd come, and it was clear, but she didn't want to go the longer way home because of him.

  "How have you been Kitty?" he asked.

  "I'm very good," she said looking up at him, an expression of anger on her face.

  "How's the blacksmith?" She didn't like Tim being referred to by Edwards, and she looked at his eyes to convey this to him.