‘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
‘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.’
