The "was" is inside of a "could" statement which usually means that it is a subjunctive tense and not a past perfect tense. This means that the tense is probabl

The "was" is inside of a "could" statement which usually means that it is a subjunctive tense and not a past perfect tense. This means that the tense is probably indicating that the intent is talking hypothetically. We don't do a good job of distinguishing these tenses on English but they do exist.