True (21 page)

Bacci paled. 'The Corsicans killed him.' A pause. 'Didn't they?'

Max kept his face impassive. Finally the man understood. 'Go to bed and be with your wife. Tomorrow, go on honeymoon. By the time you come back, I'll have worked something out. But say nothing to anyone. If you do, then no one will be able to protect you, not me, not the police. If my father even suspects you want to go public he'll--'

'He'll do what?'

Max whirled round and saw Helmut Kappel standing in the doorway. Stein and two ex-Stasi stood behind him. His left hand gripped Maria's elbow. She was still dressed in her wedding gown and jewellery. Tears smudged her mascara and her eyes were wide with fear. 'Look who we found listening outside the door -- and I don't think she liked what she heard, Professor.'

Bacci leaped foward and pulled her close to him. He glared at Stein and the two hard-faced men with him. 'Who are these men? What are you doing?' he shouted at Helmut.

What are you doing, Professor?' Helmut said. He turned to Max and his eyes narrowed. 'I thought I'd come to find out if anything significant had happened. Has it, Max?'

Max stood motionless, his hands in his pockets. 'It's under control,' he said. 'I'll deal with it.'

'I know you will,' his father said. He turned back to Bacci. 'So, what's the problem, Professor? You think I've used your drug to make a woman fall in love with me? What if I have? It's no different from what you've done.'

'Of course it is.' Bacci embraced Maria. 'I love you, Maria,' he said. 'The love we feel for each other is real.'

'Your love is no more or less real than the love Phoebe has for me,' said Helmut. 'Do you honestly think that your nature-identical love should be used as emotional Viagra for unhappy couples? How naive are you? Don't you realize what you've created? Apart from eternal life, the one thing money has never been able to buy is true love. But you've changed that. You've turned the world on its head.

'Your drug goes beyond morality. Who can honestly say that, given the chance to possess their heart's desire, they wouldn't use it? A saint would be tempted. What politician or world leader wouldn't want to buy the worshipful adoration of his people? According to Joachim, there are countless variations on NiL in your samples cupboard. Variations that, if tapped, could do virtually anything. All that's required is the courage and imagination to do it. How can you be. So stupid, Professor? You presented us with the emotional equivalent of an atom bomb and expected us not to exploit it?'

Max raised his hands. We can still talk this through, but first we must all calm down.'

Helmut reached into his coat and extracted a Glock pistol, complete with silencer. He aimed it at Bacci. 'I am perfectly calm.'

ACIDSEARED THE LINING OF CARLO BACCl'S GUT. HISDREAM HAD become a nightmare. He had expressly avoided the big banks and pharmaceutical companies because their profit-obsessed philosophies would corrupt his vision of the drug. But the Kappels were now proving far worse than the most impersonal corporation. Unwittingly he had made a deal with the devil. And what made his stomach turn with shame was that he had involved his daughter and Maria.

'What's the gun for?' he asked. What are you going to do?'

Helmut Kappel lowered it. 'Me? Nothing.' His rasping whisper was even quieter than usual. He turned to Max. 'You know what has to be done. Use your silencer.' Bacci stared at Max in disbelief, but when he saw the coldness in his eyes, his shoulders slumped in resignation. 'You don't know it yet,' he said, 'but you aren't like your father, Max. However well you try to hide it from yourself, you're a good man. Isabella told me how you saved her and how gentle you were with her. I can see the passion bubbling beneath the surface -- the good in you trying to get out.'

'Finish it, Max,' Helmut said, in his cold, metallic whisper. 'Now.'

Max blocked his father's line of fire. 'Let me handle it my way.'

A flash of anger flared in Helmut's pale eyes. 'You've no option, Max,' he said.

'There must be another way,' Max said softly. 'It's not in the professor's interests to say anything and he could still be useful to us. Give me until the morning to work something out.'

'I'll think about it.'

Max nodded, then glanced back at Bacci. Daring to hope that Max had won them a reprieve Bacci hugged Maria and kissed her tear-stained face. 'It's going to be okay,' he whispered.

As Max turned, Helmut stepped past him, raised his gun and fired twice. The first bullet entered Maria's forehead, but even as Bacci registered what was happening the second pierced his temple. The newlyweds were dead before they hit the floor.

'There,' Helmut said, eyes bright, relishing the shock on Max's face. 'I thought about it.'

IN THAT INSTANT, A LONG-FORGOTTEN RAGE SURGED WITHIN MAX, so strong it made him tremble. He had to restrain himself from lunging at his father. Stein and one of the Stasis also had their guns out, levelled at Max. They only lowered them when he regained control.

The second Stasi walked over to the two bodies, ripped the jewellery from Maria's ears and throat, and pulled the rings from the couple's fingers.

'Max,' his father rasped, 'help Stein and his men make this look like a burglary.'

Max was calm now, ice cold. He met his father's gaze. 'It's your mess. You fucking clear it up.' Then he walked out into the dark, wet night.

THE NEXT MORNING: 23 NOVEMBER

BY THE TIME ISABELLA ARRIVED AT HER FATHER'S HOUSE TO PICK UP the wedding flowers and take them back to Milan, it was a crisp morning and the sky was blue. She parked the car and walked to her father's rambling villa.

She smelt the flowers before she entered the house, but it wasn't the fresh scent she remembered from last night. This morning it seemed almost cloying, like the fragrance in the funeral parlour after her mother had died. A sudden irrational dread darkened her mood. She quickened her step. The scent was coming from a broken window by the front door.

The lock had been forced. She pushed, and the door opened without resistance. The smell of flowers was almost overpowering as she stepped into the hall. 'Papa? Maria?' Her voice sounded strange in the silence. All she could hear was the buzz of flies.

When she turned into the front room and saw the mass of flowers, her first thought was that they wouldn't fit into her small car. Then she noticed that most were strewn over the floor. The whole place had been ransacked. Her mouth dried.

Then she saw the bodies. And the blood.

Her father and Maria lay beneath the long table at the end of the room, partially covered with white orchids and stephanotis. Still in their wedding finery they were locked together in a final embrace. His body lay over hers as though he was trying to protect her. Maria's jewellery had gone, and her father's wedding ring.

Unable to process what she was seeing, she stepped closer and saw the neat single bullet holes in their heads. She struggled to summon a professional detachment, but the sight of their bodies and the smell of flowers overwhelmed her. She collapsed to her knees and vomited on the petal-strewn floor. Struggling for control, she moved to her father's body and checked his pulse, but his cold skin told her everything. She wanted to hold him then, but Maria's embrace had already claimed him. She slumped down and leaned against the table leg. Who could have done this?

Eventually she roused herself, rang the carabinieri and waited, desperate for comfort. Acutely aware that she was in a foreign country with no real family left alive, she rang the only person she knew she could turn to.

BY THETIME PHOEBE ARRIVED FROM SCHLOSS KAPPEL THE POLICE and the press were bombarding Isabella with questions. Phoebe's presence fanned the flames but within minutes she had spirited Isabella away to Milan.

The next two days passed in a daze. At night Isabella couldn't sleep but by day she didn't feel awake. As the news spread, everyone tried to contact her: people at work, old friends, her father's acquaintances and colleagues in the States. The calls came in to her mobile or to Phoebe's apartment, and they were relentless and exhausting. Many wanted to express shock and sorrow. Some probed for details. Others called to unburden their grief with little acknowledgement of hers.

Phoebe banned Isabella from answering her mobile. 'But what about my patients?' Isabella said numbly.

'Right now, you're my patient and you'll do as you're told.'

He came to see her on the afternoon of the second day while Isabella sat in the lounge looking out vacantly across the city. She barely registered the sound of the doorbell so Phoebe walked over to the intercom and let in the visitor. She only noticed Max when he was standing beside her.

'I'm so very sorry,' he said.

She looked at him, surprised. He was the last person she had expected to see. 'Thank you for all your help, Max. I've been a bit out of it, but Phoebe says you've been wonderful in helping to deal with the authorities.' She braced herself for a hollow spiel about her tragic loss, but he said no more, just smiled and sat opposite her.

'Can I get you a drink, Max?' Phoebe asked.

'No, thanks.' Max placed his briefcase beside him. 'Isabella, I'm here to offer you my services.'

'Thank you, Max, but why?'

'It's my job.' He raised his hand. 'Let me explain. Kappel Privat-bank was your father's bank. We looked after his commercial interests. I worked for him. Now I work for you.'

Isabella willed her sluggish mind to process what he was saying. She remembered Trapani recommending a bank to her father. 'You're the bank my father approached to sort out his finances?'

'Yes, and our subsidiary Comvec consulted with him on his technological projects. After what happened to your father we want to take as much of the burden away from you as possible. Let us help. We'll even organize the funeral. Tell me what you want -- who you want to invite, how you want the service to be conducted -- and I'll arrange everything. Likewise, if you need my assistance with his will or the police, I'm at your disposal. There are some outstanding business matters you need to be aware of with your father's estate, but I can discuss those with you later. If you need anything -- anything at all -- just ask.'

Isabella examined his face, and saw only compassion. 'Thank you, Max. I appreciate that. Why didn't you tell me you worked for my father?'

"We never divulge who our clients are and your father liked to keep his cards close to his chest.'

'What are the outstanding business matters of which I need to be aware?'

'Like I said, they can wait.'

'I'd prefer to get them over with.'

He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a folder. 'In here is a contract your father signed. He was working on a project for which we agreed to, advance funding and provide consultancy -both commercial and technological. In effect, we were investing in him, and our only collateral was the equipment in his rented lab and the intellectual property in any technology he developed. He structured the deal to make sure you were provided for should anything happen to him. You also get his house and any savings. Kappel Privatbank, however, gets the contents of his lab and all his computer records. It's pretty transparent, but you should show this to a lawyer.'

She glanced at the document. It seemed so meaningless now. 'I trust you,' she said.

'Don't trust me. Show it to a lawyer.'

"What was my father working on? He never told me.'

He grimaced. 'I'm sorry, I can't tell you that. Not yet, anyway. To have any chance of recouping our losses we need to find another commercial partner and they'll demand total confidentiality.'

'I understand.' Her father's work no longer seemed important.

Now that he was gone, nothing seemed important any more.

AS MAX STOOD BESIDE ISABELLA IN TURIN'S SANTA CROCE CEMETERY and watched earth shovelled into the graves, the words of her eulogy echoed in his mind.

'My father was everything to me. For the last sixteen years of my life he was my only family. When my mother died he told me that love was all that mattered and that our ability to love was what made us human. He explained that grief wasn't just the price of love but also its measure. I was young when Mama died but his words reassured me that my grief was good, because it proved how much I loved her. And as I stand here now, feeling equally wretched, his words console me. I must have loved him, too, very much.'

Isabella's words echoed what Max's mother had told him before she died. Brave words about love and loss that he had denounced years ago as foolish and dangerous, because his father had taught him that love made you weak. But now, as he looked at Isabella, pale but unbroken, it was hard to see this passionate, emotional person as weak.

Max wondered what he would feel when his father died. Nothing, probably. His father had trained him too well. And if grief was the measure of love, how much would anyone grieve at his own passing? He looked around at the pale mourners, many of whom had so recently witnessed the now deceased couple's marriage and, irrationally, envied them -- and Isabella. Loss was hard to bear, but was it worse than having nothing to lose?

After Max had arranged the smooth transition of her father's laboratory and technology to the bank, his father had ordered him to distance himself from Isabella. But Max couldn't let her suffer alone. He felt responsible for her father's murder. His father might have pulled the trigger, but he had failed to stop him. When he had been arranging the funeral he had been surprised by how much he cared that the ceremony was carried out properly. It wasn't just guilt, he realized now. When he had dealt with the church, the undertakers and the cemetery, ensuring that Isabella's father had a plot next to his beloved Maria, it had felt as if he was completing something in his own life, organizing not only the interment of Isabella's father but of his mother, whom he had also failed to save from his father. When he thought of his mother's passion and courage he was reminded again of Isabella.