‘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?’
