Where the River Takes Us by Lesley Parr

Author:Lesley Parr [Parr, Lesley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781526647788
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2023-01-05T00:00:00+00:00

About ten minutes up the path, a dog bounds towards us out of nowhere. It’s huge and, at first, I think it’s the one from the copperworks but it isn’t. Thank God! It’s a German shepherd, all long hair and giant paws.

‘Prince!’ A man comes round the corner. He sees us and waves a dog lead in the air. ‘Sorry, boys – oh – and girl.’ He grins. ‘He’s friendly, honest! Just excited. Loves the river, he does.’

Prince bounds back to his owner, who tells him to sit and the dog does it straight away.

‘Can I stroke him?’ Jinx asks.

‘Yeah. He doesn’t bite.’

Tam looks like he doesn’t believe it. The man laughs. ‘Thought he was the Beast of Blaengarw, did you?’

‘It’s not funny,’ Tam mutters under his breath. ‘Animal should be on a sodding lead.’

‘You know about the Beast then?’ Jinx rubs Prince’s thick chest coat.

‘Everyone does round here, don’t they?’ He clocks our rucksacks and bedrolls. ‘You camping?’

I nod.

‘Funny time of year to do it.’

‘It’s for our Duke of Edinburgh award.’

Jinx gives me a sneaky thumbs-up.

The man watches Catrin play with his dog. ‘Not looking for the Beast then?’

Jinx tries to sound casual. ‘Don’t really know much about it, to be honest.’

‘No?’ He looks pleased to be able to tell his story. ‘Well, last night some blokes were talking about it down The Colliers – that’s my local – the landlord’s brother’s got a few chickens up Blaengarw way. Well, he did have. Something was getting them – thought it was a fox. But he stayed up one night with a Thermos and a shotgun and – damn him if it wasn’t a gigantic cat! Scared the living daylights out of him. Fell backwards, fired a shot into the air and scared the bugger off.’ He glances at Catrin. ‘Oh, pardon my French.’

‘It’s all right,’ Jinx says. ‘She’s said worse.’

I elbow him. ‘So, it was killing chickens?’

‘Yeah, should have known it wasn’t a fox because it was taking them away. They found fully stripped carcasses on the field. Foxes don’t do that. They kill for fun, they do.’ He taps his thighs and whistles. Prince runs back to him.

‘Some people think it’s a myth,’ Catrin says. ‘The Beast.’

‘Nah, must be true, mustn’t it?’ He strokes the dog between his massive, fluffy ears. ‘Why would he lie?’

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