On my first day at secondary school, my father’s piece of advice to me was simple: ‘Keep your ears open and your mouth closed.’ While it might sound harsh now, in the early 1980s in the North, the concept of saying nothing was ingrained, particularly in a Nationalist community which felt constantly under suspicion or surveillance from the security forces. A common catchphrase in Derry where I grew up was ‘Say nothing till you see Claude’, the aforementioned Claude being a prominent solicitor in the city. Strabane, where I live now, had its own version, with only the name of the legal representation changed. This was not just advice for encounters with the law but for living in general: lest said soonest mended, keep your powder dry, play your cards close to your chest were all phrases I heard repeatedly growing up during the years of violence here while Seamus Heaney’s poem ‘Whatever You Say Say Nothing’ noted this “famous Northern reticence, the tight gag of place and times.” Time has passed but the gag remains for those of us who grew up in that place. Indeed, I met a contemporary of mine a few weeks back in Oxford who commented that he still lives – and does business - by that concept: listen, wait, assess the ground and choose your words carefully. Despite the fact that the political landscape is very different now, that way of thinking is deep-rooted.
The One You Least Suspect is built around that idea. Katie, a bar maid in Derry, is forced into an impossible situation, trapped between a criminal gang for whom she (unwittingly) works, and police officers who are happy to use her to get intel on her employers, even if it puts her life at risk. How can she keep both happy – saying something and nothing at the same time while not drawing attention to herself.
Informers and double agents loom large in our violent history - most famously the double-agent called Stakeknife, a British military agent who was also a senior member of the IRA security unit, the ‘nutting squad’, tasked with finding and interrogating informers. Between 1978 and 1994, over 40 people were killed by the IRA for being alleged informants, murders which, the BBC says, “were often allowed to take place despite state security force surveillance.” That said, while the book is concerned with the use of informants, it is rooted in post-ceasefire years where, for the most part, criminality has replaced political ideology and yet where, I fear, the younger generation, having not experiencing our history first hand, has not yet learned from it either.
The idea that law makers can also be law breakers runs through many of my books and, perhaps, is most obvious in this one where the actions of the O’Reilly crime gang and those of the officers handling Katie are paralleled. Both believe that they are right, that their actions are justified to protect the community, even as they terrorise those they claim to protect. The working title for the book was The Dirty War – a reflection of the ethical issues which the use of informants raises. That ethical dilemma is, I hope, reflected in Katie’s experience as she tries to walk a tightrope between two implacable forces, all the while retaining her own sense of herself and her principles, so as to reclaim her autonomy once more.
It is also a book about how the machinery of bureaucracy is used to disempower and force compliance. Both the O’Reillys and the police make assumptions about Katie, a working-class single mum, and believe that throwing her the odd handful of cash will buy her loyalty or withholding her benefits will force her into doing as she is told. There is, for me, no greater moral failing than exploiting others or predicating your help for them based on how it benefits you. Exploitation of the community lies at the heart of every dirty war and is central to The One You Least Suspect. Ultimately, however, I hope the book is about empowerment, of finding a way to escape such exploitation and turn the assumptions of others to your advantage. It is, I hope, a novel about an individual asserting their own identity and finding their strength in the face of adversity from all sides. And finally, it is, I hope, a pacy and claustrophobic thriller.
