Chapter 26
It took a long time for the alderman to come to the prison, and when he did, Mullins was surprised by what happened. 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, who interpreted them to mean: 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. They both descended the stairs and then were let out the gate to the square at Cornmarket. When they were clear of the square, 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; he 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 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 whisky 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’s first thought was to wonder how the alderman knew that he frequented the place, and then he wondered if 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 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.” 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. Should he loop back a little and go to the cabin? But if alderman went in there, it wouldn’t look good, 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 on to 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 home. Although all the killings had taken place in a small area, none of them had seemed to affect 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. He tried to see the rust that people had thought was blood the night Mary Sommers was attacked. He looked around in 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. They had 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, but it is someone who lives nearby, someone I might see every day, walking the streets or working for some merchant. 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 Mullins 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? But 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; it was more likely than not going to put Mullins in more trouble and being called a liar into the bargain. He would have to keep an eye out for this man himself and see what he could do.