A former top cop whose new job is to review MLAs' salaries has revealed how he once defused an explosive situation by kissing a republican.
"I was at the end of my tether," says Alan McQuillan. "I'd worked a 72- hour shift, been shot at by the IRA the night before, and then found myself policing a controversial Orange Order parade in Portadown.
"Nationalist protestors were hurling abuse. I knew if I wasn't careful, I'd hit somebody. One republican was being very offensive. So I grabbed him by the lapels and gave him a big kiss on the forehead!"
The previously hostile crowd fell about laughing. "'You got the queer policeman!' they yelled at the protestor I'd kissed," McQuillan recalls with a hearty laugh.
The former PSNI Assistant Chief Constable was this week appointed to a three-person panel to review MLAs' salaries. He's faced far tougher challenges. As head of the now defunct Assets' Recovery Agency (ARA), he plagued paramilitary fat-cats, seizing tens of millions of pounds in houses, businesses, cash and much more unusual items.
"Cows, horses, Japanese dogs, restored Bentley cars, luxury boats, art collections, wardrobes of designer clothes – you name it, we seized it," says McQuillan. He's the man who set in train a series of events which has led to IRA chief-of-staff Slab Murphy currently facing charges in Dublin on major tax evasion.
McQuillian was more impressed with the Provos' financial skills than those of loyalists who were "very showy – it was all gold jewellery and four cruises a year". But millionaires' mansions were popular in republican South Armagh. "One house had more balconies than Buckingham Palace," he recalls.
He never envied the lifestyle of those he investigated: "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."
Despite the ceasefires, he runs a "slight risk" of still being targeted by paramilitaries: "They expected to be locked up but they never expected someone coming after their houses and possessions. That's very personal and can lead to considerable resentment."
McQuillan (56) was born in North Belfast, the son of a shipyard worker. "After internment, an IRA gunman came to our door. 'You've two hours to get out', he said. We packed our belongings onto a coal lorry and left."
Initially, he'd no interest in joining the police. He studied physics at Queens University: "The sun and the stars, that's my passion. There's a huge universe out there waiting to be explored."
He went on an RUC recruitment scheme in England – to get a free week away from home – but landed a job. His first posting was in Co Derry where he recalls arresting legendary IRA man, Francis Hughes, who later died on hunger-strike.
"After a gun battle with the Army, Hughes escaped but a large chunk of his thigh had been shot away. We were there at night, with torches, following a trail of bullets and blood he'd lost when crawling away. He couldn't walk or run.
"He hid in thorn bushes for hours until he was in such pain he shouted out to a soldier. As he was being carried away, he yelled 'Up the Provos!' He asked one of my colleagues to shoot him. The officer had a MI 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.'"
There were funny times too. McQuillan recalls arriving with a fire extinguisher after a local drunk had set his own trousers on fire. "I put out the blaze. Willie then lodged a complaint that the extinguisher had frozen his testicles and damaged his ability to have children!"
After ARA's abolition, McQuillan set up a private consultancy company. He's worked mainly in the Balkans advising the authorities there on tackling organised crime. It's a far cry from his early days on patrol in Co Derry. His business recently took him to Mauritius. "Life's a bitch!" he laughs.
Known as 'Hamburger' and 'Big Mac', McQuillan loves cooking: "I make a mean risotto and you can't beat a slow-cooked leg of Irish mutton." His appetite is his "biggest weakness", he admits: "My weight used to give the paramilitaries hope – they'd be praying for that heart attack."
He's now on a diet: "I've lost a stone in a fortnight – only 15 more to go!" He's an avid reader of Irish politics. So has McQuillan sampled Gerry Adams' books? "Is that the fiction or the history?" he asks, a twinkle in his eye.
He recently read a history of police in Derry in 1800: "The three main problems were officers running up debts, getting drunk, and consorting with prostitutes. One policeman was found in bed, in uniform, in a brothel in Shipquay Street. Somehow, he managed to keep his job!"
