Chapter 39
The next killing followed not long after the boar was displayed to all at Cornmarket, just as Alderman James had feared. He had known by the face of Mary Sommers that they did not have their killer. He went to her that afternoon at her home, and both she and another victim told him that the boar was not the Dolocher. As he made his way to the site of the murder, James was already aware of who the victim was: it was the gaoler at Newgate Prison, James Brick—the one person whose death could reignite the nonsense of Thomas Olocher’s revenge from beyond the grave.
The body was as badly mutilated as the deliveryman Cleaves had been: limbs and stomach torn to shreds and the face all but smashed into the skull, brains and skull spattered around the ground. Edwards, as always, was standing nearby, but James wanted to talk to the soldiers first for their version of events, if there was any. There wasn’t much to go on, apparently: the guards at the gaol said that Brick left without saying anything at about midnight, as he did sometimes, and they saw no more of him after that. The body was found in a tiny alley at Cutpurse, in front of some businesses that were closed for the night, and so yet again there were no witnesses to the attack. Some people a street to either side had heard a short, sharp scream but nothing after that.
James then went over to Edwards to see what he had to say. “The gaoler,” James said.
“The perfect person to keep the rumours alive,” Edwards replied.
James suddenly thought that Mary Sommers would have suited this role as well; he called a soldier over and ordered him to go and patrol the street where she lived until daybreak and to report anything he thought was suspicious.
Edwards listened and then said, “You think she will be targeted again?”
“I do now. There is something that feels staged about this, something almost theatrical, and the perfect way to go from here would be to kill Mary Sommers.”
“A definite human mind behind what you propose,” Edwards said.
“I have felt so all along, but I let what I saw the night I chased him cloud my judgment.”
“What motive could there be behind all this killing? Some of the people were linked to Thomas Olocher, but the rest have seemed almost random.”
“That’s what is so hard to say. I have searched high and low for any relatives or friends of Olocher that might have had reason to feel they were avenging him, but I have come up with nothing. He seemed to have no friends and no family.”
“My own searches have come to the same conclusion.”
“So why would anyone want to carry on in his name?”
“Maybe they aren’t, but people are just reading into it that way.”
“No, I think if he wanted to be known for what he was doing, he would have changed his killing method once the rumours of the Dolocher started to spread.”
“On another note and to confuse things further, there is something I think you should know about.”
How could things get any more confused? James thought. “What?”
“The blacksmith, Mullins, has been out wandering the streets at all hours the last few nights. He is not going to taverns but just walking all the streets where the killings have taken place.”
“Why is he doing that? Him of all people!”
“He says he is going to catch the Dolocher.” Edwards smiled.
“He’ll get himself killed. Or worse still, people will be convinced now that he is the killer, and he will be killed by a mob.”
“He has his own theory as to who the killer is.” Edwards’s grin grew even wider now.
“Who?” James asked, eyebrows arched.
“Me.”
“Why does he think that?”
“He has seen me out on the streets at night, and I get the impression that he doesn’t like the look of me one bit.”
James’s own doubts about Edwards resurfaced. He thought again about how Edwards knew more than he let on. It was possible that he was indeed the killer. He was always out in the middle of the night, and he had plenty of places he could hide after he killed. But then, hadn’t he been with James when one of the murders was committed? Again it came down to the idea that Edwards was an accomplice at best, and if that was the truth, there was no way that the Dolocher was ever going to be revealed and brought to justice unless James or Mullins or a victim was able to catch him and overpower him.
“Well, this paranoia will get the better of most people,” James said. “There are some who probably think I am the killer for the same reason.” As he said this, he wondered if it might not be true: Why not Alderman Level Low? He’s killed before, hasn’t he? Multiple weavers and who knows how many else? He realised for the first time—and as he did he was dumbfounded by his own naiveté—that if he didn’t catch this killer, he was going to be associated with it: the alderman who walked the streets at night, who was always around when the murders were committed. Was there no end to the bloodlust of this man? How could he have been so silly not to have seen how guilty he could look in the eyes of the very people he was trying to redeem himself with. The idea of rumours, the same thoughts he had about Edwards, now came to him. If the alderman is not the Dolocher, he knows who is, and he is protecting him. He saw the faces of the men in the whisky cabin on Cook Street who left the free tables around him and didn’t want him in their company. He’d thought it was because he was a man of the law, but it was because they were afraid of him and what he might do to them if he or whoever he was protecting came across them at night on their way home. If the law was the murderer, who was ever going to be able to do anything about it?
“This Brick fellow used to sneak out to meet a woman,” Edwards said, and James snapped back to the moment.
“Sorry?”
“Brick leaves the prison a few nights a week to see a woman. The tale goes that she is paying off her husband’s debts in another way to keep him out of prison.”
“Who is this woman?”
“I’m not sure of the name yet, but she lives in Wormwood, and that is probably where he was going tonight.”
“That would make sense, I suppose.”
“You don’t seem interested in this information.”
“I’m not. If he does this a few times a week, he could have been observed many times by the killer and easily targeted.”
“You don’t think the husband might be a suspect?”
James looked at Edwards. “For all the crimes or just this one?” he asked.
“That’s what I was wondering now myself. We find the name of the woman, and that leads us to the man, and then we can see who he is and what he is about.”
“Worth a try, I suppose.” The alderman was still thinking of his own guilt and stupidity.