Cry of the Children by J.M. Gregson

Burns has done with youngsters in the past.’
    The news the police had dreaded, but increasingly expected, came in at eleven twenty on that cool, clear Monday morning.
    Bad news came in a most unlikely shape. Emily Patten was a grandmother, sixty-four years old, recently retired from her work as a part-time librarian and enjoying a brisk walk with her Labrador, Ben, on the picturesque path that runs alongside the River Wye below the old town of Ross-on-Wye. She was exulting in the crispness of the late-October morning, with the sun still quite low in an almost cloudless blue sky. She met few people here at this time, save for the occasional person who was retired like herself.
    Most of the people she met were walking in the opposite direction, back towards Ross, and most of them were men. Some of them were considerably older than she was. They found this slim woman with the pretty, small-featured face and the vigorous carriage very attractive, and Emily enjoyed that, even as she told herself how little it meant. Most of them were dog-walkers like herself, and dog-walkers in Emily’s experience were invariably not only harmless but interesting. So she accepted friendly greetings, a little banter and a few shameless compliments.
    There was no harm in it and not a little pleasure. And if there had been any menace, Ben would surely have come to her rescue. In truth, Emily was not entirely sure of that, since the dog seemed universally friendly to all human approaches. Even in canine interchanges, Ben acted as a fully paid-up coward; his policy was to steer clear of all conflict. He was enthusiastic and indiscriminate in his amorous advances to other dogs, which occasionally embarrassed his owner. But he drew the line at snarls, growls and fights and extricated himself swiftly from all situations that involved them.
    Emily carried a tennis ball. She had become more expert in throwing it, now that Ben had left his puppy days behind him. It needed a good long throw to give the Labrador the exercise he needed. She flung it now along the deserted bank of the river, where the grass was short and the ball bounced and ran, so that Ben could race enthusiastically to retrieve it. No wonder he was so energetic, she thought wryly. When they returned home and she resumed the household chores, Ben would stretch himself flat with a contented sigh and doze happily whilst she worked. A dog’s life was a pretty good life, in her household.
    This was the wrong place to throw his tennis ball, and she knew it. Ben brought the ball back to her with diminishing enthusiasm after her first two throws. After the third, he abandoned it shamelessly. When there was water at hand, it dominated the dog’s thoughts and actions.
    Whenever opportunity in the form of an easy entry to the water offered, the dog was down the bank and into the Wye. He swam enthusiastically, returning to the shore a little further down the river each time as the current carried him gently southwards and away from Ross. He now emerged to frisk around a septuagenarian whom he recognized immediately as a friend. His mistress yelled a desperate warning, which she saw was too late. She knew what was about to happen, but she was powerless to prevent it.
    Ben convulsed himself into forty pounds of boneless muscle and shook himself with a convulsive energy that extended from nose to extremely mobile tail. Hearing the man’s good-natured shouts of alarm, he accepted them as a compliment and redoubled his efforts. Thirty seconds of intense activity left the dog transformed from sopping to merely damp and his new friend liberally showered in the waters of the silver Wye.
    â€˜I’m terribly sorry!’ gasped Emily Patten, arriving precipitately just after the event.
    â€˜It’s quite all right,’ said the white-haired victim, feeling foolish rather than wounded. ‘I saw it coming – I’d have got out of the way twenty years ago. But now …’