Alan McQuillan was at the end of his tether. Exhausted from a 72-hour
shift, he had been shot at by the IRA the night before and was now policing
a controversial Orange Order parade in Portadown. Nationalist protestors
were hurling abuse.
"I thought if I wasn't careful, I'd hit somebody. One republican was
particularly offensive. So I grabbed him by the lapels, pulled him towards
me, and gave him a ... big kiss on the forehead!"
The hostile crowd fell about laughing. "'You got the queer policeman!' they
yelled at the protestor I'd kissed," McQuillan recalls. That's McQuillan all
over: unconventional, irrepressible, big in every sense of the word.
But under-estimate him at your peril. He's more than just the fat former cop
with the sense of humour. At 39, he became the UK's youngest Assistant
Chief Constable. Eleven years later, he's the man who allegedly has IRA
chief-of-staff, Thomas 'Slab' Murphy, on the run.
Not that he will say that. The Northern Ireland head of the Assets Recovery
Agency (ARA) states only that 250 properties are being investigated in
Manchester. He won't name names. But he does recall, with a hearty chortle,
meeting the elusive Mr Murphy in 1982 while a policeman in South Armagh.
"I was conducting a search at Slab's farm on one side of the Border. Slab
was on the bit of Slab's farm on the Southern side of the Border. He wished
me good day and told me to enjoy his property in the North. I wished him
good day and asked if he might stop videoing me. The film was later used in
a republican propaganda video in the US."
Apart from the Manchester case, the ARA is currently investigating £10
million worth of assets; a further £6 million have been frozen. "Cows,
donkeys, horses, Japanese dogs, restored Bentley cars, we've seized them
all," says McQuillan.
He's come across £120,000 boats, £6,000 televisions, art collections, and
wardrobes of designer clothes. He has been stunned by the opulence of some
properties under investigation. One South Armagh home had more balconies
than Buckingham Palace.
"For years in Northern Ireland, certain people have lived way beyond their
means. What we've seized so far is only a drop in the ocean. Deficiencies
in the criminal justice system can mean guilty people get off. The ARA can't
put them behind bars, but we can leave them poorer."
Does he envy the lifestyles of those he investigates?: "I've a nice house,
not a mansion, in a nice area. I drive a bog standard car. I've never wanted
anything flash. I get my kicks from people and achievements, not money and
possessions."
Sinn Féin denounces him as a securocrat in civvies. "We do investigations,
not politics," he insists. "Our actions can have political implications but
we don't set out to cause anyone political problems." He has a great
relationship with the Republic's Criminal Assets' Bureau: "There's not a
tissue between us."
He's impressed with the Provos' financial skills compared to those of
loyalists. They're more sophisticated, centralised, and less ostentatious
about their wealth: "With loyalists, it's gold jewellery and four cruises a
year."
Republicans focus on more "socially acceptable crimes" – smuggling and
counterfeit goods – whereas loyalists concentrate on drugs and extortion, he
notes. Both groups invest heavily in property. One loyalist even bought an
old schoolhouse from the Catholic Church in Co Sligo.
Following the Manchester raids, Gerry Adams denounced McQuillan as a former
Special Branch officer – he never was – and made other allegations. Last
week, various media apologized to him after carrying defamatory Sinn Féin
comments.
"The first I knew of a certain politician's remarks was when my daughter
rang me. 'How dare he say that about you!' she declared. She gets annoyed –
with all the moral conviction of a 16-year-old!"
McQuillan orders his coffee "strong and black" as he settles down to talk
about life outside work. "Don't think I'll be confessing an interest in
exotic underwear!" he jokes. An enthusiasm for cooking is admitted: "I
make a mean risotto. Love trying different things. I'm into Spanish food at
the moment."
He's been nicknamed 'Hamburger' and 'Big Mac'. His appetite, lack of
exercise (his wife's always nagging him about that), and resulting weight
represent his "single biggest weakness", he acknowledges. "No doubt it
gives some people hope," he declares, laughing at paramilitary prayers for
an imminent heart attack.
He compares himself to a US prosecutor who "asked to be cremated because so
many people would piss on his grave". In the police, he survived several
murder attempts unscathed. He swapped duties several times with colleagues
who were subsequently shot – they joked he was a jinx.
Despite the ceasefires, he's still a target: "Paramilitaries and criminals
expect to be locked up. What they don't expect is someone coming after their
houses and possessions. That's very personal and can lead to considerable
resentment."
He was born in the religiously mixed Oldpark area of North Belfast, the son
of a shipyard worker. "After internment in 1971, an IRA gunman came to our
door. 'You've two hours to get out,' he said. We packed our belongings onto
the back of a coal lorry and left."
The family moved to the Protestant part of Ardoyne, but were forced from
there when McQuillan joined the police. Initially, he had no interest in
such a career. He studied physics at Queen's University. "The sun and the
stars, that's my passion. There's a huge universe out there waiting to be
explored."
Student politics held no attractions. "A group of us played bridge between
lectures. I remember something awful happened and somebody made a comment.
Someone else said 'I'm a Catholic' and the attitude was 'Are you? Three of
clubs."
After graduation, a friend mentioned an RUC graduate recruitment scheme in
Eastbourne. "My friend said it would be a free week away in England. Off we
went. While the other recruits were in bed at 10.30 pm, we had a good time."
Despite the socialising, he was successful. His first posting was to
Magherafelt, Co Derry – "had to look it up on the map". After a gun battle
in which a British soldier was killed, he arrested legendary IRA man,
Francis Hughes, later to die on hunger-strike.
"Hughes escaped but a large chunk of his thigh bone had been shot away. We
were there at night, with torches, following a trail of bullets, blood and a
beret he'd discarded when crawling away. He couldn't walk or run.
"Hughes hid in thorn bushes for many hours until he was in such pain he
shouted to a soldier. The bushes were too dense for us to get into him and
he was so badly wounded, he couldn't climb out.
"We had to throw him a rope. He was very dehydrated. As he was being carried
away on a stretcher, he raised a clenched fist and shouted 'Up the Provos!'
In the ambulance, he asked one of my colleagues to shoot him. The officer
had a M1 carbine. 'That's a tiddler, not a man's gun,' Hughes said. 'Now put
me out of my misery, it's what you want anyway.'"
Hughes is a republican hero. Does McQuillan acknowledge his fearlessness and
personal courage?: "He was an extremely good terrorist. He killed a lot of
people. He was very dedicated – a terrible and ruthless opponent – and some
would say brave. But I saw a lot of people he murdered, including a child,
which brings a different perspective."
McQuillan says Hughes (who was never charged with the alleged offence)
planted a bomb under a British soldier's car, killing him instantly: "The
soldier's five-year-old son was thrown from the vehicle, his eye blown out
of its socket. His nine-year-old daughter was killed. We were lifting her
from the car to a body bag. It was heart-breaking. I froze and couldn't
continue."
There were funny times too. He recalls a local drunk's 999 call after
setting his trousers on fire: "I arrived with a fire extinguisher and put
out the blaze. Willie later lodged a complaint that the extinguisher had
frozen one of his testicles!"
McQuillan applied for the Chief Constable's job in 2002 but political
sensitivities meant the local man would never get it. "I knew the politics
but decided to have a go. I did a poor interview, wasn't on form. I wouldn't
have appointed me after that interview. I was still upset, not getting the
job, but I've no grievance against Hugh (Orde). He's a great Chief
Constable."
McQuillan left the police for ARA and "the opportunity to build an
organisation from scratch". Freezing a person's assets doesn't mean they're
currently engaged in crime: "The money could have been made up to 12 years
ago. Looking at assets can be like looking at the stars – you're sometimes
gazing at history."
He's an avid reader of Irish politics. Has he sampled Gerry Adams' books?
"Is that the fiction or the history?" he asks, a twinkle in his eye. "No, I
haven't – life's too short!" His own memoirs "probably won't" be written.
Many autobiographies are "vanity publishing".
He's a big fan of Samuel Pepys' diaries, though. "A fantastic character.
Good in some ways – reforming the navy – a rogue in others, like consorting
with prostitutes when married. Once got a man a job at sea so he could
seduce his wife – with the wife's full consent of course!" Pepys was up to
all sorts of financial skulduggery. "Now," says the ARA boss with a grin,
"I'd love to have got my hands on his assets!"
