‘No.’
‘What’s the problem? Would you like water, a coffee? A lawyer, even?’
She smiled, as if he’d said something funny. ‘None of the above, thanks.’ She delved into her bag once more and produced a second envelope, marked ‘S’. ‘That’s my written statement,’ she announced, pushing it across the desk and leaning forward, shoulders hunched.
‘It’s all I’m prepared to say on the record, so I thought I’d save us all some time by getting it down in advance. It says that DC Montell told me on Wednesday evening, at his flat, that he had to go out for a while. He said that he was sitting in on an operation as a substitute for DS McGurk, who had an important personal appointment. I asked him what it involved, casually, with no specific interest. He said that he and Sauce Haddock were staking out a meeting in a pub between a man called Kenny Bass, and another called Freddy Welsh. Both names were known to me. Bass had been mentioned in connection with another inquiry, about six months ago, but he wasn’t involved, so I never had cause to meet him. But I had met Welsh, socially, several times over the years, most recently at a party in my Uncle Jock’s house a year or so back. He’s a relation of my Aunt Ella, Jock’s wife.’
‘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?’