The Coterie

Chapter 1

Chapter One

The call came in the early hours of the morning, dragging Chapman Bouttell reluctantly into an unwelcome degree of alertness. Slowly, he surfaced from the shallow depths of what had been a fitful sleep. His mouth was dry and he needed the toilet. Fumbling blindly in the darkness for the telephone, something crashed noisily to the floor.

“s**t,” he mumbled sleepily.

Finally, after expending a couple more expletives he would never use in mixed company, he found the telephone, thankful to be able to stop the incessant ringing.

“Hello,” he groaned.

“Chap?” It was a female voice.

“Yeah.”

“Chap, this is Jenny Patten, from Communications. I’m sorry to disturb you, but I’m afraid I have to call you on duty.”

“Of course you do, Jenny. It’s the middle of the b****y night after all. That’s the only time anyone ever calls me,” he said, with undisguised sarcasm. “What time is it by the way? My bedside clock is on the floor somewhere.”

“It’s a few minutes after four o’clock,” she answered.

“That would be in the morning, right?”

The policewoman ignored the sarcastic jibe. “Why is your clock on the floor?”

“The display is too bright, it keeps me awake,” Bouttell lied. “What have you got?”

“It looks like homicide, Sarge. One of our patrols found the body of an adult male with what appears to be a single gunshot wound to the head.”

“Front of the head or back?”

“Back.”

“Then that wouldn’t just look like a homicide—it would be a homicide. It would not be a suicide, would it? Suicides don’t shoot themselves in the back of the head. None that I’ve ever seen, anyway. Where is it?”

“Heywood Park, on the southern end of Hyde Park Road. Do you know it?”

“Yeah, I know it.”

“We have officers there at the moment securing the scene. You have been assigned to take charge of the investigation.”

“s**t!” Bouttell spat. “It’s pissing down out there. Isn’t anyone working in Major Crime tonight?”

“There’s no Senior Investigator on duty. The Watch Commander nominated you.”

“And who would that be?”

“Sergeant Turner.”

“That would be right,” Bouttell scoffed. “That prick hates me, I’m sure of it.”

“Pardon?”

“Forget it, Jenny. Tell Turner I’m on my way.”

“Your partner has already been notified. He’s on his way to pick you up. He should be there shortly,” she advised.

“Okay, thank you.”

Bouttell reached for the bedside light, switched it on and dropped the receiver onto its cradle. He yawned, swung his bare legs over the side of the bed and slowly raised himself into a sitting position. He sat for a moment, silently cursing the arthritic twinge that burned deep in his hips and shoulders. He yawned again, ran his hands through his unruly hair and picked up the fallen clock.

“s**t!” he murmured. “s**t! s**t! s**t!”

Murder was b****y inconvenient. At least that was how Chapman Bouttell perceived it. The burden of being a Detective Sergeant, which in his case carried with it the responsibilities of Senior Investigator, did nothing to diminish this opinion. It wasn’t the first time he wondered why most murders seemed to happen at night. Statistically, the hours between six p.m. and six a.m. were those in which a person would most likely expect to die at the hand of his fellow man. By contrast, death as a result of an accident was somewhat more considerate, not so selective as to the hour of the day in which it occurred. Accidents had the courtesy to distribute their circumstances with some degree of impartiality with regard to day and night. Not so with murder, Bouttell mused. Murder was b****y inconvenient!

Nonetheless, murder and the investigation of it was his job, and had been since his transfer to the Major Crime Investigation Section, MCIS, ten years earlier. The utter senselessness associated with the killing of another human being, and the curiously bizarre novelty that murder scenes presented when he first came to his current position, had long since left him. Even after all his years in the job, he still found the whats and the whys of every homicide investigation fascinating. And, despite the unpleasantness of being roused from his bed in the middle of the night, it was his job. It was just that, to be summoned to duty at such an hour, on such an abysmally cold and wet night, was, he assumed not unreasonably, damned inconvenient.

It was July. In Adelaide in July, it was most definitely winter, and Chapman Bouttell found little comfort against the pre-dawn icy chill as he waited on his front porch for his partner to arrive. Hoping he would not have to wait long, he tugged at the collar of his heavy overcoat, pulling it high around his neck, trying to burrow deeper into it.

The street light in front of his house emitted a hazy, indistinct glow and cast an eerie shadow over the front yard and the unkempt garden within its borders. His lawn needed mowing; he would have to do something about that, he thought. Or, maybe he should just pay someone to do it. He looked up into the dark, starless sky. It had started to rain again, and a bone-chilling wind whipped the steady downpour into all too frequent gusts of numbing spray from which his small porch offered precious little protection. He pushed back further into the shadows of the porch and hunkered even deeper into his coat. Any warmth, even imagined, had to be better than none at all.

Bouttell had not had a cigarette for over three years, but, waiting here for his partner in the bitter, pre-dawn cold and dark, the desire returned. He found that odd because he had never really craved cigarettes once he had made the decision to quit. He comforted himself with the realisation that if he still smoked, he would have to take his hands out of his pockets to enjoy one.

Incongruous thoughts of a long-abandoned bad habit were interrupted by the arrival of an unmarked police sedan. As it slowed and stopped at the entrance to his driveway, he braced himself against the elements and stepped from his porch. “Time to go to work,” he muttered softly.

The car’s heating system was noisy, but at least it was working, albeit inefficiently. Tepid air from the engine compartment seeped from the vents in the dashboard and circulated weakly through the interior of the vehicle. There was a damp, musty smell to the air and, even though smoking in police vehicles had long been banned in the interests of the health and safety, the interior smelled of it.

Bouttell settled down in the passenger seat and welcomed what little warmth there was on offer, but not the familiar odour. He glanced across at his partner. At thirty-eight, Detective Senior Constable Anthony Francis was twenty-four years younger than Chapman and considerably junior to him in length of service. They’d been partners for almost a year, and there were those within the job who considered Francis worthy of admiration for achieving that particular milestone. A long time ago, someone, Bouttell had long forgotten who, had described him as being a morose individual. At the time, he remembered being unsure of whether or not he should feel offended. Mainly because he had never heard the word ‘morose’ and had absolutely no idea what it meant, other than a gut feeling that it probably wasn’t complimentary. By the time he had a chance to look it up and discover its meaning, it was too late to argue the point either for or against.

Chapman had seen many partners come and go, but none had remained with him for longer than a few months. Perhaps deservedly, perhaps not, he had earned a reputation of being often difficult to work with. It was not a reputation he enjoyed or encouraged. Rather, he lived with it in quiet tolerance. Needless to say, he was inwardly pleased to discover, a few months into their partnership, that Francis looked upon the relationship as a valuable learning experience.

Bouttell’s preference was to work alone, much to the chagrin of his superiors, but he reluctantly and silently accepted that these past months working alongside Francis had been mildly enjoyable. Indeed, that was about excited as Sergeant Chapman Bouttell was ever going to get about working with anyone.

The two were, however, like chalk and cheese in their respective attitudes with regard to ambition. Whereas Bouttell maintained a somewhat casual detachment directly relevant to his years of service, twenty-seven in total, Francis epitomised the very definition of a career police officer. Unlike his more senior partner, Francis decided early that his destiny, like that of his father before him, lay amid the ranks of commissioned officers and it was to this end that he channelled all of his energies. Marriage had never been something he seriously considered. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe marriage and subsequent parenthood to be satisfying and rewarding. He was sure it was. Indeed, he was himself a product of just such a marriage.

For him, it was simply a matter of priorities. His job took preference in his life and he had long ago fully committed himself to it. It would be wrong, he reasoned, to have a wife and kids waiting at home wanting, perhaps even demanding, more of him than he was prepared to give. Whenever he was reminded of the high marriage mortality rate amongst members of the police force, and that was far too often for his liking, he always came back to the conclusion that bachelorhood was not something to be taken lightly. A perfect example of that logic sat next to him in the car.

Bouttell’s marriage had gone the way of many others within the force. A once happy union had taken a slow, bitter and decaying spiral towards inevitable breakdown and ultimately, divorce. Francis decided early that there was no room in his life, at least in the foreseeable future, for external distractions such as marriage and the commitment it demanded.

They did not have far to drive, but it was not a journey warmed by jovial small talk. Francis was far too familiar with his partner’s all too often sour disposition to expect him to engage in anything deeper and more meaningful than perfunctory conversation.

Operational procedure dictated a radio channel other than that used by General Duties units be used by members engaged in investigative roles. It was to this channel that both men directed their attention as they drove.

Chapman glanced at Francis and noticed his partner looking at him. “What?” he asked the younger man.

Francis smiled. “Good morning, boss.”

“You gonna sit there staring at me or watch the road?”

“Well, aren’t we just dripping with charm this morning?” Francis chided.

Chapman turned away, looked through the passenger window at the terrible night and, in spite of himself, smiled inwardly. “You’re gonna kill us both before we even get there if you don’t keep your b****y eyes on the road!”