‘And you phoned your uncle,’ I said. I needn’t have interrupted her, but I wanted to remind her that she was in an interview situation whether she thought so or not, and to exercise a degree of control.
‘Yes, sir, I did.’
Mario stepped in. ‘Why?’
‘My written statement explains that. I had no idea that Inspector Varley would act on what I told him. I passed it on as a piece of family gossip, no more. Obviously, I’m now sorry I did it. The statement includes an apology to the team involved in the Bass operation and also to the chief constable for bringing the force into disrepute. I know that won’t save my job, but I feel it should be there.’
‘You’re right on both counts, DC Cowan,’ I told her. ‘Now, what do you want to say to us off the record?’
Still hunched forward, forearms on the desk, she looked up at me, eyes hooded. ‘What makes you think I do?’
‘I know you, Alice. And so does Mr McGuire. You’re not the sort who gossips.’
‘I did once.’
‘Yes,’ Mario snapped, ‘and Neil McIlhenney and I booted you off Special Branch as a result. You’re not stupid, so please don’t imagine that I am. I don’t buy the notion of you making the same mistake again, on the basis that it was family gossip. It was more than that last time, so come on. We’ll do this off the record for now, if you like, but we do it. Otherwise I hand you back your letter of resignation and you go down the full formal dismissal route, plus I rip up your statement, we caution you formally and I switch the recorder on.’
She sighed and sat back in her chair, running her fingers through her spiky hair. ‘Okay,’ she whispered. ‘Off the record.’
‘That’s better. So, why did you call Jock?’
‘I wanted to tell him about Freddy Welsh. The truth is, I didn’t want him to have any nasty surprises if Griff and Sauce wound up lifting his wife’s cousin. I expected him to warn Auntie Ella, not bloody Welsh.’
‘How close were he and Welsh?’
‘I’ve no idea. He was always at family dos, not just the formal ones, but the kind where all the blokes wind up in the kitchen, and all the women are in the front room. As I remember, he and Uncle Jock seemed to get on fine there, but other than that I do not know.’
‘How about you, Alice?’ I asked. I didn’t really know why, but something in her body language told me I should. ‘Did you ever talk to Welsh at these parties?’
She paused, considering. . considering something, but I couldn’t tell what. ‘Yes, a few times,’ she conceded, eventually. ‘I danced with him at a wedding once.’ An eyebrow twitched, and I thought that I caught a slight flush under the tan.
‘And?’ She looked back at me, without expression. ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘don’t get coy on us. It won’t help.’
‘Nothing really, he just got a bit smoochy, that was all. It was quite late on, and we’d all had a couple of drinks by that time.’
‘Just a bit smoochy,’ I repeated. ‘Sorry, Alice, but I’ve got to ask this. How smoochy are we talking about here, and did you smooch back?’
The flush deepened. ‘Is it relevant?’ she murmured.
I thought Mario was about to explode, so I kicked him, quickly, under the table, not too hard but enough to get his attention. The volcano rumbled, but didn’t erupt.
‘I won’t know until you tell me,’ I replied. ‘Look, Alice, we can stop this at any time, but as DCS McGuire said, if we do, we go on the record, it’s interview under caution, and we’ll advise you to be legally represented. If you would like us to bring in a female officer, that can be arranged. We’ll take a break for that.’
I stopped, to give her a few moments to consider her options. Mario had cooled down; he even offered to fetch tea or coffee. I’d have been for that, but Cowan shook her head.
‘No thanks,’ she said. ‘Yes, I did smooch back, as you put it. Probably harder than he did. When the dance was finished, we went outside and I had sex with him in the back of his car, in the hotel car park.’ She stared at the tabletop. ‘I’d been without a man for a while, plus I’d had a few drinks, as I said earlier; other than that, no excuses.’
‘No excuses necessary,’ McGuire murmured. He nodded sideways, towards me. ‘If there was a vacancy for guardian of public morality, neither of the two of us would be in with a chance of the job. But what you’ve just told us makes things very difficult.’
‘Why?’ she protested. ‘Sir, it was a one-off; I patted him on the bum when we were finished and sent him back inside to his wife. She and Auntie Ella had been gossiping in the bar, so she never had a clue. That was it. We didn’t exchange phone numbers and neither of us ever mentioned it again when our paths crossed in the future.’
Mario sighed. ‘Alice, the number of times you did it, that’s irrelevant. The very fact of you having sex with Welsh, even just the once, that’s what matters. If this investigation does lead to criminal charges being laid against Jock Varley, you’ll be a key witness, and wide open to any suggestion that you had a reason to warn Welsh yourself that he was walking into something.’
‘Uncle Jock wouldn’t say that,’ she protested.
‘If Uncle Jock winds up in the dock, he’s going to be looking at time inside,’ I pointed out. ‘You have to assume that if his counsel comes up with that as a line of defence, he’ll go along with it. Look,’ I added, ‘I have to put this to you, straight out. Is that what happened? Did you in fact call Jock and ask him to warn Welsh off because of your previous relationship?’
‘Absolutely not!’
‘Did you call him in the hope that he might do that?’
‘No!’ she shouted.
‘Okay. I’ll accept that your anger is genuine, Alice, and that you didn’t. But will the jury believe you if the accusation’s put?’
‘That’ll be up to them, won’t it?’ Her eyes were belligerent.
‘Yes, but before it gets to them,’ McGuire interjected, ‘the Crown Office has to believe you. Alice, I’m sorry, but I repeat, the fact that you screwed Freddy Welsh, even if it was six years ago, does put a whole different slant on this. For a start, it’s a hand grenade chucked right into the middle of this informal, unrecorded, discussion we’ve been having. You’ve told us, we know, and whatever the basis, we can’t ignore it. We will have to include it in the report we make to the fiscal, and he may then have to take a view on whether any conspiracy might have been between Inspector Varley and Welsh alone, or whether you were part of it.’
‘Fuck,’ she whispered.
‘I know,’ he said, ‘you’re wishing you’d kept your mouth shut just now.’
Her laugh took us by surprise. ‘Actually I’m wishing I’d kept my legs closed six years ago. But I hear what you say; it could look bad for me. All I can tell you, again, is that it’s not true. What else can I do?’
He pushed the envelope marked ‘S’ back across the table. ‘Take that away,’ he told her, ‘and revise it, adding in everything that you’ve told us here, and anything else that you haven’t. If Welsh sent you flowers afterwards as a “Thank you” gesture, you must declare that. List every contact you’ve had with him since your encounter. Once you’ve done that, bring it back and we will treat it as if it was in the first envelope you gave us, as if you volunteered everything in it. . as, eventually, you did.’ He turned to me. ‘You all right with that, Andy?’
‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘as long as you understand that after it goes to the Crown Office it’s out of our hands. We can only recommend; any decision on prosecution is theirs.’
‘I understand.’ She picked up the envelope, then looked me in the eye. ‘Should I take legal advice?’
‘That’s up to you,’ I replied. ‘If it’s any help, I would in your shoes. If you want to run your statement past a solicitor before you submit it formally, that’s fine by us. But be wary of anyone who tells you to say nothing at all. In reality, you’ve already said it; while this has all been unrecorded, it’s not privileged, and if necessary we�
��ll be obliged to disclose its contents. Apart from that though, the fiscal takes a dim view of people who stare at the wall and decline to answer any questions.’
‘Okay. Thanks.’ She stood. ‘Where do I hand it in, when I’m ready?’
‘My office,’ Mario told her.
‘I don’t have to come back here?’
‘No.’
‘That’s good. I don’t want to bump into Griff.’
‘Are you and he. .’
She took a quick bite of her lower lip. ‘He is.’
I walked her back to reception, to the front door. Not that she didn’t know the way out, but I felt that if she was seen with me, looking reasonably relaxed, it would be better than if we’d left her to walk out on her own, head down, every eye in the place following her. ‘So you’re in the doghouse?’ I asked as we reached the door.
‘No, it’s worse than that. Seafield cat and dog home, unclaimed, on death row.’
It was my turn to chuckle. ‘Been there,’ I confessed, ‘but I survived.’
‘How? I could use a tip.’
‘Look as pathetic as you can manage,’ I advised her. ‘Eventually someone’ll take pity on you. It worked for me.’
‘Mmm. In that case you might know where I can pick up a length of sackcloth. The ashes of my career are still warm, so I don’t need any of them.’
I hadn’t expected to, but I felt sorry for her. She’d been no more foolish than many, but a lot less lucky than most. ‘Listen, Alice,’ I said, quietly. ‘Once this is all sorted, and some time’s passed, give me a call if you want to.’ I gave her a card. ‘My office number. I won’t make any promises, but you never know. Resignation is probably the right move just now; much cleaner than the alternative, and no public stigma attached.’
‘Thanks, Mr Martin,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll keep that in mind.’
As she walked away, I called after her. She turned. ‘What?’
‘One thing; if you decide to use that card you’ll need to lose the hair gel.’
Mario was still in the interview room when I returned. So were two tall Starbuck containers, and a couple of croissants. I stared at him. ‘Where the hell did those come from?’
‘Paula dropped them in for us. I told her we’d be here about now.’
‘Some girl, Paula. How’s she doing?’
‘Magic. She’s just magic. She’s had all the scans going and every one’s a photo opportunity. The wee fella looks so comfy in there he might not want to come out.’
‘A couple of months without a full night’s sleep and you’ll want him to crawl back inside,’ I told him. ‘Will you be looking to move house?’
He looked at me as if I’d asked him if he wanted a ticket for the next Hearts game, and answered me as if I had. ‘Why the hell would we want to do that?’
‘You live in a duplex, man,’ I pointed out. ‘However many floors up.’
‘We have lifts, Andy, and two parking places in the underground garage.’
‘But lifts break down.’
‘They don’t, actually. They’re serviced more often than a police car, and they’re driven a hell of a lot more kindly.’
‘But the height, the balcony. .’
‘The windows are secure, you couldn’t fall out if you tried, and his name’s going to be Eamon, not Spiderman. Your kids come to visit you from time to time, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you ever worry about them falling in the Water of Leith?’
‘Well, no. .’ I admitted.
‘Exactly. Look, if Paula says we’ll move we’ll move, sure, but as of this moment, she doesn’t want to. Do you see us in a nice big house with a garden?’ He shook his head. ‘Fuck no.’ He killed half his croissant in a single bite.
‘That was a turn-up with Alice, was it not?’ I ventured.
‘Sure was. Getting pissed at a wedding and shagging a married bloke in the car park? I did not have her down for that at all.’
‘Me neither,’ I agreed. ‘But I wonder if Uncle Jock did. Ready for him?’
He raised his coffee. ‘Let’s kill these first. I need the caffeine rush. I always have a couple of espresso shots in my Starbuck’s; does much more for me than any of that ersatz cream they stick on them. Yours is the same.’
I took a mouthful of mine, and imagined that I could feel my heart rate increase by about twenty beats. ‘This is as bad as Bob’s stuff,’ I gasped.
When we were finished Mario dumped the empties in a bin in the corner, then left the room to have Varley brought along from his overnight accommodation. By the time he arrived, brought in by an escort, we were both seated behind the desk, but on the same side. I had binned the unused CDs and two fresh ones, still wrapped, lay beside the recorder.
I’d wondered if I might recognise the inspector after all, but I didn’t. There are over three thousand people in the Edinburgh force, more than the population of many a small township, and it is possible to be a serving officer for years and still bump into strangers, even though they may have been around for longer than you. He recognised me, though; I could tell by the way his eyes narrowed.
Although he’d been held in custody overnight he looked smart. He was wearing his uniform, having been arrested, discreetly, at his office, and he’d been allowed to shave, under supervision, I assumed. Unlikely or not, the last thing Mario would have wanted was a suicide attempt in the custody suite. His grey-black hair was neatly and recently cut and his moustache was as sharp as the edge of a well-trimmed lawn.
‘We’ve got to stop meeting like this, Jock,’ my companion said. ‘You under arrest, me on this side of the table.’
His mouth tightened. ‘Not funny, sir.’
‘I wasn’t laughing.’ He picked up the CDs, opened them as theatrically as before to demonstrate that they were virgin, loaded the machine, and switched it on. He began with the date and time, then,
‘I am Detective Chief Superintendent Mario McGuire accompanied by Mr Andrew Martin, director of the SCDEA, based in Paisley, present at the request of the chief constable. Please state your name for the recorder.’
‘Inspector John Varley, aged forty-four, a uniformed officer stationed at Gayfield Square.’ He was calm and controlled; no histrionics, no show of indignation over his detention.
‘Again for the record, Inspector Varley, although you haven’t been charged you have been offered the chance to have a lawyer present at this interview, and you have declined. Is that correct?’
‘It is, sir.’
‘You may reconsider that if you wish.’
I knew why Mario was being so particular. For years Scots law allowed the police to question suspects for up to six hours without having access to legal advice. Then, out of the blue, that situation was overturned by a Supreme Court decision, controversial in itself since that London court wasn’t given oversight of Scottish criminal appeals when it was set up. Chaos ensued and since then cops everywhere in Scotland have erred on the side of caution. As a ranking officer, Varley would have been only too aware of the new ground rules, so my crafty pal was making certain that he couldn’t use it to create any loopholes he could slip through later.
But the inspector didn’t seem to have that in mind. ‘No, sir,’ he declared, ‘I’m okay to proceed as we are at this stage. I spoke to a lawyer on the phone this morning and he’s given me general advice on my rights.’
‘Are you happy to have a voice recording only,’ I asked, ‘or would you like video also? Again, that can be arranged.’
‘No thank you, sir. I don’t want to find myself appearing on Reporting Scotland.’ He allowed himself a small smile, at the reference to another controversy that had followed the release to the media of a filmed interview with a suspect who was later acquitted.
‘All right, let’s get down to it,’ Mario said. ‘Were you on duty on Wednesday evening at Gayfield Square?’
‘Yes, sir, I was. There was a pre-season football match at Easter Road; the division was heavily
involved, but I wasn’t at the ground, I was in charge of the office.’
‘Did you received a phone call that evening?’
‘Yes, sir, I did.’
I could see that Varley was doing things by the book, volunteering nothing, making us work for every detail of every answer. I wasn’t having that. ‘Yes,’ I repeated, cutting in. ‘It was from your niece, DC Cowan. She told you that she’d just picked up some gossip from her boyfriend about. .’
‘No, sir,’ he said, sharply. ‘She didn’t say that at all.’
‘Oh?’ I exclaimed. ‘Then what did she say?’
‘She asked me to meet her.’
I tried to hide my surprise, but didn’t quite succeed. Mario didn’t even bother trying to conceal his. ‘She did what?’ he barked.
‘She asked me to meet her; that’s what I said.’
‘So, when you were caught on the station CCTV ten minutes later, you were actually going to meet DC Cowan. That’s your story, is it?’ Varley nodded. ‘For the record!’ McGuire bellowed.
‘Yes, sir, it is.’ The inspector paused, and smiled. ‘Would you like to suspend the interview, sir?’ he asked. ‘I don’t mind.’
The big guy was incandescent; he was anticipating the gambit that was going to be played, and so was I. ‘People who try to take me for a ride, Jock,’ he growled, savagely, ‘they don’t usually like the destination when we get there.’
That sounded too much like a threat for my liking and the recorder was live. Time to intervene, I reckoned. ‘Chief Superintendent,’ I said, ‘perhaps I should carry on the interview.’
He drew a huge breath, then exhaled, very slowly. ‘Perhaps you should, Director,’ he murmured, never taking his eyes off Varley.
‘Where did you meet, Inspector?’ I asked.
‘At the end of the street; the top of Leith Walk.’
‘When DC Cowan called you, where was she?’
‘I’ve no idea, sir. But from the background noise, I’m sure she was on her mobile, not a land line.’
‘I see. So you put on your coat, and left the office?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why did you do that?’
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