Black Water

Acknowledgements

The idea for this novel came when I was a guest of the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival on the island of Bali, Indonesia, in 2012 and would not exist without the generous help of its Artistic Director, Janet De Neefe. My warmest thanks to her and Ketut Suardana for their kindness, hospitality and patience with my endless questions. I am also indebted to many others who helped with research or read the manuscript, in some cases both; in the Netherlands, Dr Revo Soekatno of Wikimedia Indonesia and Adriaan Van Dis; in Indonesia, the Tanjung Sari, Hotel Indonesia Kempinski, John H. McGlynn of the Lontar Foundation, Suzanty Santorius and Yosef Riadi; in the UK, Michael Arditti, Jacqui Lofthouse and Kevin Smullin Brown; and in the US, Dr Clayborne Carson of the King Research and Education Institute and Stanford University, for permission to quote him and for advice on the lives of the black middle classes in 1950s Los Angeles. Any errors in this novel remain entirely my responsibility.

The coup and counter-coup of 1965 led to the deaths of up to one million Indonesians, mostly members or suspected members of the Communist Party, the PKI. The violence included neighbour-on-neighbour killings at a time of great poverty and hardship but much of it was orchestrated by the military and aided by the provision of lists of names by the CIA, then engaged in a Cold War battle to prevent the spread of Communism throughout South East Asia. The existence of these lists is a matter of public record but the character of Harper and his role in the handover of one of them are both my invention, as is the institution he works for.

Private companies working as risk analysts or consultants for multinational corporations and governments have existed for decades and many are active worldwide today. Staff in London and Jakarta working for a long-established firm in this field gave me invaluable help with my research on the condition of anonymity for themselves and their employer. I’m very grateful for the insights they offered into a business that relies on discretion. There is no suggestion their activities are comparable with any of the events in this novel.

Heartfelt thanks as ever to my agent, Antony Harwood; to Sarah Savitt, to Hannah Griffiths and Lisa Baker of Faber & Faber UK and Sarah Crichton of Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York.