Mrs Datlow was a dumpy little housewife in her mid-forties. She wore black trousers that unflatteringly hugged her round frame, topping them off with a well-ironed but ill-fitting blouse. Age, experience and motherhood had taken away any beauty she might once have had. Her blue eyes were watery, on the verge of tears or possible even a nervous breakdown. Before she opened her mouth, I wanted to offer her a cup of tea to calm her nerves.

“Mister Bryson,” she said, “I don’t think I’m really here.”

I smiled at her, patiently.

“I mean in an official sense. You were reccomended to me, you see?” She had a quiet little voice. Just a hint of the Highlands in her accent. I thought she probably came from Inverness or one of those tiny Highland towns with the ridiculous names.

“Sit down,” I said, kindly. “Why did Sandy – sorry, DI Griggs – ask you to come see me?”

“There’s nothing he can do about my son,” she said. “He said you might be able to do something.”

I nodded. I flicked the kettle on and went to stand by the window as I waited for it to boil. She still hadn’t taken a seat.

“Please,” I said. “Sit down.” I gestured to the padded chair reserved for clients. She sat down gingerly, as though she were afraid her weight might break the chair. She looked the kind of woman who rarely had a kind word spoken to her. Nothing nasty, but then nothing kind either.

“Bobby’s a good boy,” she said. “He’s just friends with the wrong people. I think it’s a normal thing for teenage boys to go through, isn’t it?”

“Aye,” I said. “Its called rebellion. Tea?”

She nodded. “Aye, please,” she said.

As I made two cups, I said to her, “What do you mean by the wrong people?”

“I’m no one to judge,” she said. “I grew up in a high rise in the granite city. But these boys, they’re rough, ken what I’m saying?”

I grunted my acknowledgement as I squeezed her teabag between the side of the mug and the teaspoon.

“I don’t know where they live exactly, but one of them might live down by Charleston.” She raised an eyebrow as she said this. Chareleston had something of a reputation; the kind of area you wouldn’t want to be walking around after the sun had gone down. Like a lot of areas in Dundee that the new metropolitan image hadn’t quite caught up with, it had its share of schemies, junkies and kids who’d just grown up too quickly.

“There’s nothing you can do about your son’s choice of friend,” I said, diplomatically.

“That’s what my husband says, Mister Bryson. I think my son’s friends have killed him.” She said it flatly; a statement, not an accusation.

“What?”

“Detective Griggs said there was nothing they could do till Bobby was missing for forty eight hours, but I know something’s happened to him and I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t do something now.”

I nodded, trying to look as sympathetic as possible. “Milk?”

She nodded.

I handed her the cup of tea and took my own seat behind the desk.

She sipped delicately at her tea, as though she was afraid the liquid would burn her mouth. She reminded me of a bird taking sips of water from the ocean, pecking swiftly at the liquid.

“You think your son is dead.” I studied her face and saw that, for her, it was an irrevocable, irreversible truth. She didn’t expect me to find him alive. “Why do you think they killed him?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “It could be drugs.”

“You son took drugs?”

“I watch TV,” she said. “I see it all the time. On those talk shows. Trisha had a young man on the other day who was the same age as Bobby. Bobby was white, you know, in the last few months. Really white. Pale as a ghost.” She looked at me with big eyes and I felt sorry for her as much as some part of me was repulsed by her making judgements on her son.

“Mrs Datlow,” I said. “I’ll be honest and tell you that I don’t think there’s much I can do.”

“He’s sixteen, Mister Bryson.”

“So he can legally leave home,” I said. “If he’s dead, you know I probably won’t find a body. Somebody else will. The police may find by accident quicker than I could, and if you’re willing to wait the forty-eight hours – I assure you its not as long as you think – then the police really will be able to do a lot more than I can.” I didn’t say anything, but I also doubted she could afford my fees.

“I don’t want to wait, Mister Bryson,” she said. “I don’t think any mother could.”

***

Three hours later, I was on the phone talking to Sandy. “You’re a bastard,” I told him.

“I know,” he said. “Did she tell you the name of Bobby’s friend?”

“Archie Keever?”

“Aye,” said Sandy. “That’s the one. He’s a little tosser. I’ve met him once or twice. He’s done more than his fair share of community service and been a guest here at the station more than a couple of times. Mostly minor offences. Shoplifting, Class C Drugs, assault.”

“He’s how old again?”

“Eighteen.”

“He’s the one Mrs Datlow was concerned about.”

“Tell me about it,” said Sandy. “She wasn’t going to leave the station until we did something about her son, and my hands were tied by procedure. Anyway, I thought you could do with the business.”

“I don’t do hand holding or freebies,” I said.

“I’m not asking you to,” said Sandy. “I told you I thought you could do with the business. I know what she looks like: frumpy wee housewife from the arse end of some council estate, right? Her husband’s a doctor.”

“So she’s got money?”

“That’s the thing that’s stopping you taking her case, right?”

“I’m hardly so mercenary.”

“And you’re hardly a charity case,” said Sandy.

“I don’t think this’ll go anywhere,” I said.

“So you told her you wouldn’t take the case?”

“No,” I said. “I couldn’t say no to her.”

***

I talked to Sandy some more and found out more information about Archie Keever, the “bad influence”. Sandy gave me a leg up on how to reach him. Most evenings, according to Sandy, you’d find Archie in the Crow’s Claws Bar, just outside Lochee.

I walked into the Crow’s Claws at five to nine that evening. It was filled mostly with locals; big burly who didn’t like to the look of a newcomer in their midst. I kept thinking of those old western movies when the stranger comes into town. Their suspicion passed quickly however, and they all resumed drinking their pints. I walked to the bar and got the barman’s attention. He was a big man with a shaved head and bull neck. His tiny eyes regarded me with suspicion.

“Is Archie Keever in tonight?” I said.

The barman grunted and hiked a thumb to a table at the rear of the pub. I looked over and saw a young man in blue jeans, shell-suit jacket and baseball cap sitting across from a blonde girl with too much makeup.

I went across and stood silently beside their table until finally Archie Keever looked up at me and said, “What is it?”

“Archie Keever?”

“Are you the polis?” he said.

“No.”

“Then fuck off! I’m trying to have a wee drink with my girlfriend.”

“I want to talk to you about Bobby Datlow,” I said.

He looked at me with hooded eyes, trying to figure out who I was if I wasn’t with the police.

“You smell like bacon,” he said.

“I’m not.”

“Then who are you?”

I pulled across a stool from another table and sat down. Archie didn’t try to knock my block off. He was curious, I suppose.

“When was the last time you saw Bobby?” I said.

“I don’t know,” said Archie, making a dramatic gesture out of shrugging his shoulders. “Last week, maybe.”

I nodded. “Where?”

“Just hanging out, like. At some lad’s flat.”

“Whose flat?”

“Dunno.”

“Where?”

“Dunno.”

My patience was growing thin. I couldn’t tell if Archie really was stupid or if he was just playing me for an arsehole.

The blonde girl spoke up. She said, “Leave ma man alone!” Her voice was harsh, with just the right pitch to make me think of a dog whistle.

“I’ll leave him alone when he tells me what I need to know,” I said.

“Just get lost, man,” said Archie.

My patience giving way, I stood up and grabbed him by the collar. I pulled him up to his feet and across the table. His face was about an inch from mine. I could smell the beer on his breath.

“Stop pissing me about,” I said. “I’ll break your bloody neck.”

I could feel the locals shuffling round. Maybe they wanted to see a fight. Maybe they wanted to join in.

“Where’s the fucking flat?” I said, gripping him tighter.

Sighing, like this was too much bother, Archie broke and gave me the address. I let him flop back into his seat. The rest of the pub returned to their drinks, all interest lost when the threat of violence disappeared.

***

The flat where Archie last saw Bobby Datlow was at the top end of Lochee Road. It wasn’t too shabby. The building was old, but not yet ready to fall apart. Across the street an off-licence sold cigarettes and alcohol to twelve year old children who looked closer to twenty.

The main door of the building was protected by secure entry. I found the flat number I wanted and held my finger on the buzzer until someone finally answered.

“Is Bobby there?”

“Who wants tae know?”

“A friend of Archie’s.”

“Oh aye, come up.”

There was brief tone. I pushed the door and it opened easily.

The flat was on the third floor. The stairwell smelled faintly of piss. When I reached the flat, there were three people waiting for me in the corridor; all young men and not the types to back down easily from a fight by the look of them.

“What do you want?” one of them asked: a pumped up rodent in a string vest and blue jeans.

“I think you know,” I said, guessing that they were suspicious because Archie had already phoned ahead.

“None of us have seen Bobby. No since last week.”

“You’re not a copper,” said one of the other guys. He had a bad squint and thick, fish-like lips.

“No,” I said. “His mother wants me to find him. He’s disappeared.”

Rodent-boy looked me up and down and said, “Well, we haven’t seen him since did. She’s the bitch who came round to take him home again. She came to the flat effing and blinding about how he was going off the rails. Fucking cow. Barging in here with no respect. She dragged him away. Like we gave a shit.”

“Last time any of us saw him,” said Fish-lips.

They could have been pissing me about, but I got the feeling they really didn’t know anything.

“Did Bobby do drugs?” I asked.

All three of them laughed. I guess it was a stupid question.

“Grass,” said Fish-lips. “Nothing much else.”

“Pussy,” said Rodent-boy, passing judgement on the possible deceased.

“Let us know if you find him,” said Fish-lips. “He owes me money for that last bag of hash he fucking stole from me.”

***

Outside on the street, my mobile began to bleat. I checked the number. Sandy.

“Hey,” I said into the phone. “What’s up?” Rain began to fall. It stung my cheek.

“It’s a police matter, now. The Datlow case,” said Sandy. “They just found his body.”

“Shit,” I said.

“He was shot,” said Sandy. “Twice. Once in the stomach and once in the head. Wrecked his face.”

“Jesus,” I said. The rain fell harder.

“Looks like Mrs Datlow’s mother’s intuition was right all along,” said Sandy.

***

Steve was eating a sausage roll when Sandy and I strolled into his office. He looked up and finished off a mouthful before wiping the crumbs from the front of his shirt.

“I don’t like eating in front of my guests,” he said. “It’d probably just upset them.”

Sandy and I exchanged glances.

Steve ran a hand through his hair – greasy and unkempt – and said, “Nice to see you again, Sam.”

“Aye,” I said. “You too.”

“You don’t call, you don’t write.”

“I know.”

“Must be something important if he’s bringing you down here,” said Steve. He led us out of his office and into the rows of freezers.

“So how’d you know the kid?” he asked me.

“His mother thought he was missing. I was hired to find him.”

“By which you mean Sandy pushed her in your direction.” Steve winked. “I’m no as daft as I look, you know. You two have a kind of deal going and despite the attitude of most others in the employ of Tayside Constabulary, I think its no bad thing.”

Finally, we came upon Bobby Datlow’s resting place. Steve pulled the drawer out of the wall. The body was covered with a white sheet.

“You sure you want to see this?” Steve asked.

Sandy nodded for me.

“Not pretty,” said Steve. He burped loudly. “Christ, I shouldnae wolf down those sausage rolls like that.”

He pulled back the covers.

My legs went to jelly. Sandy took in a deep breath.

“It wasn’t suicide,” said Steve. “We know that much. He was shot twice, once in the head and once in the stomach. Both times the same weapon: a shotgun pretty similar to those farmers use on grouse shoots. I get the impression our killer wasn’t exactly the best shot in the world so it was just good or bad luck – depending on how you look at it – that he got our boy right where he did.” He patted Bobby’s body on the shoulder, like he was comforting the corpse. “The body was moved, we know that much.” He sighed and covered Bobby up once more. “It’s a change,” he said. “Dealing with a shooting. Most of the time anyone in here who died in a violent altercation was stabbed or battered to death with a blunt instrument. Guess I know how the boys stateside feel now.” He grinned, but there wasn’t really any humour behind it.

Sandy was looking at the body under the sheet with dead eyes.

“Hey man,” I said. “You okay?”

Sandy nodded. “Just thinking that this was all pretty tragic.”

“All death is tragic,” said Steve. “That’s the nature of the beast, man. What worries you most – and it worried me too – is the idea that this was more than likely premeditated. Someone wanted to kill this boy. Its not like we can just walk into an Asda’s or something and pick up a gun and bullets.”

I said to Sandy, “Have you called his mother?”

“I got the father,” said Sandy. “Said she was sleeping. He’d tell her himself.”

“Right,” I said. “Guess maybe I should call them myself. Gotta give them bill.” I felt like a shit, but these things have to be done.

***

As it turned out, there was no need for me to call Bobby’s parents. When I walked to my office the next morning, Mrs Datlow was waiting for me on the pavement outside.

It was nine in the morning and there was a refreshing nip in the air.

“You must live nearby,” she said. “No car.”

“Five minutes,” I said. “I like the walk in the mornings.”

“How much is that I owe you?” she asked. Her voice was flat, words running out on automatic.

I gave her the amount and she said she’d write a cheque. I asked her to come up to the office. We could finish our business up there.

My offices are above a Building Society on Courthouse Square. There’s a wee side door you take and then you have to walk up three flights of stairs before you reach the door that says, “Bryson Investigations”. Its not much and I don’t really call it home, but I tend to rely on the quality of my services rather than the décor of my establishment.

I had to unlock the door. Babs, my secretary, had taken the day off. She and her husband were away to Glasgow visiting their daughter on her twenty-seventh birthday. I admit I was finding it taxing with Babs away. Some days I don’t think I could find my socks without her.

Inside, I picked up the mail and invited Mrs Datlow to walk through to my office. I stayed in reception a moment and sorted quickly through the mail. Mostly it looked like bills, so I figured I could ignore them for a few hours at least.

When I walked into my office, Mrs Datlow had already sat down. She was hunched over, weeping like a banshee. I felt awkward suddenly about how to approach her.

“Hey,” I said in what I hoped were comforting tones. I knelt beside her. I reached out like I was going to touch her and then changed my mind. “Look, its okay, we don’t have to deal with this now.”

She pushed me away and stood up. She looked ready to run out of the office. I said, “Just take a seat. Everything’s going to be okay.”

She looked at me like I was an idiot. “He killed my boy,” she said, softly. And then, with more force. “He killed my boy.” Tears started to well in the corners of her eyes.

I tried to reason with her. “We don’t that Archie or any of the other boys killed your son,” I said.

She pushed against me. She had tremendous strength in her tiny arms and I staggered back a few steps. “It wasn’t Archie!” she said. “You just don’t fucking get it!” She fell back into the chair and doubled over, unable to control the tears.

“Then tell me,” I said. “Make me understand.”

She looked up, her eyes puffy and bloodshot. “My husband,” she said. “It was my husband shot my little boy.”

***

When she finally calmed down I made her a cup of tea. She told me the whole story, punctuating her narrative with sobs and shudders of grief.

As it turned out, the night Mrs Datlow dragged her son home there was a family confrontation. It was inevitable, of course. Mother and father took in turns in shouting and crying, and Bobby just stood there impassive to their emotional onslaught. The father was the more vocal – something I suspect was a frequent occurrence – in expressing his disappointment in Bobby. Finally, the confrontation had escalated into a screaming match before climaxing in Dad trying to punch his son’s lights out. Bobby had run upstairs to his room.

Dad had been standing by the fireplace for most of the confrontation. Above the fireplace there hung a shotgun that had belonged to Bobby’s grandfather. The old man had been a gamekeeper on some estate up in the Highlands. Mr Datlow still had ammo for the gun he kept hidden in a box under the marital bed. Mrs Datlow said she just thought the gun was an antique; she did not know it still worked.

After Bobby had stormed upstairs, Mr Datlow grabbed the gun from where it hung on the wall and stormed upstairs after his son. Mrs Datlow had stayed where she was, thinking that her husband meant to frighten the boy. If she believed what he said later then that had been the original intent but somewhere along the line things got out of hand.

She told me she had no idea how the gun got loaded, but her first clue that something was wrong was when she heard the first report of the shotgun. That jolted her into action and she ran out of the living room into the corridor. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she heard the second report.

They moved Bobby’s body about three hours after time of death. Mr Datlow had been the one who came up with the idea of blaming it on the “bad crowd” Bobby had been hanging with.

I didn’t say anything to her, but moving and hiding the body was possibly the worst mistake they made. Sooner or later, someone would have got to the truth.

Mr Datlow had taken the body out to the fringes of a public park, buried it in a shallow grave. Mrs Datlow had cleaned the house. She said she didn’t feel anything the whole time, like she was in some kind of dream and everything that was happening around her was entirely out of her control.

When she was finished, she looked at me with dead eyes and said, “What are you going to do?”

I looked at her. I thought to myself that now she had come out with the truth, there had been a tremendous change in her. She’d shrunk, somehow, like she’d died a little along with her son.

“Why did you come to me?”

“My husband thought it was a good idea. To get you looking around my son’s life. It would make it seem more convincing, you see, that some little shit had killed him for drugs or something. I mean, he wasn’t living a good life, you know. He was hanging around with some bad people.”

I could have picked up the phone right then and called Sandy. But something made me stop. Sooner or later he would stumble on the truth anyway. And I couldn’t turn over Mrs Datlow like this. It just felt wrong to me.

So instead I said, “I’ll drive you home. We’ll talk with your husband, try and sort this mess out.”

She agreed, somewhat meekly, with this. When she handed me the keys to her car, our fingertips brushed briefly and like an electrical current her sadness seemed to pass across into my body. I felt a lump gather in my chest, but I swallowed and suppressed the feeling.

***

The Datlow’s lived in a small house out past Burkehill, one of Dundee’s more upmarket outlying areas. The house had two floors, a front and back garden and was secluded from other houses around it. I could see how no one would have noticed the double shotgun blasts on the night Bobby Datlow died. There was a pond in the front garden, and Mrs Datlow told me it was her personal project. She took care of the fish in the pond. She said she liked to walk outside and watch them swim around in the water. It was peaceful.

As we crunched up the gravel path to the front door, a sudden chill hit me. I stopped outside the front door and listened carefully. “Mrs Datlow, is your husband home?”

“That Range Rover you parked beside was his car,” said Mrs Datlow.

I listened again. The house was quiet. There’s a feeling you get around houses that are empty. Its different even to when someone inside is quiet and still. The house was lifeless to me.

As I was about to follow Mrs Datlow in the front door, a crow landed on the lawn. It cackled at me like it knew something.

“John?” shouted Mrs Datlow.

Ignoring the crow, I followed her inside and stood with her at the base of the stairs.

The house was darker than it should have been. The staircase was at the far end of the main corridor, curving round as it moved to the second level of the house. Halfway up the stairs, at the apex of the curve a window was set in the wall. Sunlight streamed through the window, slicing the shadows. Flecks of dust danced in the light.

Mrs Datlow started to climb the stairs. “He’s particular about keeping the front door locked,” she said. “He must be home. Maybe he’s asleep. Just wait here and I’ll get him.”

I would have done as she asked, but I was compelled to follow her. My stomach was heavy with anticipation of something I could not describe. At the top of the stairs, she turned to a door on her right and gasped.

Her hands fell limply to her side as she looked through the open door and into the bedroom. I looked past her and saw the bloodied body of her husband crumpled on the white sheets of the bed. There was a note on the dressing table, but I don’t know if Mrs Datlow registered it. I pushed past her and pocketed the crumpled paper before she could read it. I didn’t know what kind of effect it would have on her.

“Jesus,” said Mrs Datlow, still frozen in the door way. “Oh my dear God, Jesus Christ.”

Standing beside the bed, I took a better look at her husband. His body had fallen awkwardly. The shotgun lay on the floor beside the bed. It looked almost useless to me. It was hard to believe it had been the instrument of two violent deaths.

I looked back at Mrs Datlow. She was shuddering. I wanted to go to her and comfort her, but something held me where I stood.

“Its my fault,” she said. “We had a fight, you see. Last night. I said some terrible things… I told him Bobby’s death was… Oh my God, I told him Bobby’s death was his fault. He killed my son and I killed him.”

The tears ran down her face. Still, she did not move.

I moved next to her and then past her, out into the hallway. I walked slowly down the stairs and went into the living room where the telephone sat on a coffee table. I hesitated for just a moment, but it was long enough.

The shotgun blast seemed to echo throughout my body. I had to lean against the wall to stay upright. When the shakes finally faded, I picked up the phone and waited just a few seconds before dialling.