Free The Dolocher by European P. Douglas Page A

have.
    “Now, you get started on that, and I will get started with my questions,” he said filling his own plate. She began to eat, and the hot food was something else her senses had missed so much. She closed her eyes to the feeling, and she could feel the nourishment already in her saliva.
    “OK,”, she said.
    “What happened the night that Olocher was brought in?” he asked and the mention of that name again caused her to open her eyes and she looked about the place as if Edwards had just addressed him and he was in the room.
    “It was a horrible night,” she said
    “How so?”
    “Well, the weather for one thing, it was streaming down.”
    “I’m not too interested in the weather. What happened when he got to the prison?”
    “They brought him in and took him straight up into the tower without any questions or anything like normal.”
    “Do they normally ask questions when they bring a prisoner in?”
    “Yes Jimmy the...Mr. Brick normally asks a lot of questions and has the person searched before you get thrown in a cell.”
    “Jimmy the Prick?” Edwards smiled, and again Kate blushed at her error. “You don’t have to blush on my account; that idiot is no associate of mine. Go on what next?”
    “Well, it was a normal enough night then for a while, nothing was going on and then all of a sudden there was the noise of a woman screaming from up in the tower.”
    “A woman screaming?”
    “Yeah, that’s what it sounded like anyway and then there was animals outside.”
    “The pigs?”
    “Yeah, only a few at first but then there were loads, hundreds maybe.”
    “Hundreds?”
    “Well, it was hard to tell from the dungeon but that’s how it seemed.”
    “And then what?”
    “Well, they all started squealin’ it was like they were being slaughtered, and then some of them tried to break in through the gates.”
    “Break in?”
    “Yes they were thumping against the gates, we could see them moving from the inside.”
    “Remarkable.”
    “Yeah, it was, and then it just stopped all of a sudden just like it had begun.”
    “The woman screaming as well as the pigs squealing?”
    “I think so.”
    “Then?”
    “Then there was a big to do with the guards and they found out that he was dead up there.”
    “Olocher?”
    “Yeah, and then the soldiers came and there were other people coming and going all night.”
    “Do you know who these people were?”
    “No, I didn’t know any of them.”
    “Where they in the military do you think?”
    “I couldn’t be sure but they weren’t wearing any uniforms.”
    Edwards was silent for a little now, and he seemed to muse deeply on what she had said.
    “And the next morning was the riot outside the prison?”
    “Yeah, the people who went to see him hung showed up just as the body was being taken away. They went crazy and attacked the soldiers and took the body.”
    “Do you know who took the body?”
    “I could see them but I don’t remember ever seeing their faces before.”
    “When the body was found was it brought back to the prison?”
    “No.”
    “And when the body was being taken away did you actually see it?”
    “Well, it was covered in a sheet.”
    “Were you able to tell for sure that it was Olocher?”
    “Well no, but it must have been.” Kate was confused as to what he was saying, but he didn’t dwell here.
    “Tell me about the night that the first guard was killed.”
    “We were asleep over at the wall away from the window, trying to keep warm,” Kate said, and the thought of this made he put another hot piece of potato in her mouth, “and then there was this noise outside and we could hear the guard crying out in agony,” she felt the hot flush of tears come to her as she remembered the event.
    “Could you see anything at all, a shadow even?”
    “No nothing.”
    “And the noise you heard before the guard crying out, what was it?
    “I don’t know, it sounded like an animal.”
    “What animal did it sound like?”
    “I