True (2004)

by Cordy, Michael

  '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.

  5 DECEMBER

  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.

  Throughout the last few days he had helped Isabella deal with the police and lawyers, but he had never seen her break down. And although she had accepted his assistance, she hadn't depended on him. When the police had again questioned her to try to ascertain who might have broken into her father's house, she had been calm and helpful. When one of the officers had offered her a tissue, she had said, 'Please don't be kind. I can handle anything but that.'

  Max took his cue from her. He became her shadow, but never intruded. He answered her questions and made practical suggestions, but never offered emotional support. After all, what did he know about handling emotion? He might be able to suppress it, but he couldn't harness it as she did.

  As the priest concluded the service and the mourners moved to their cars, he sensed Isabella's shoulders stiffen. When Phoebe came up and hugged her, he saw her eyes mist. After his father had escorted Phoebe back to his limousine, a line of well-wishers passed her -- Maria's family, the Trapanis, other relatives and friends. All hugged and kissed Isabella. He understood from the way she bit her lip and didn't speak that this was hard to bear.

  When the last mourners had moved to their cars and they were alone by the graves, Isabella glanced at him, lower lip trembling. She looked lost, and closed her eyes, as if to seal in her grief. A single tear escaped. Max stepped closer and instinctively laid a hand on her shoulder. She fell against his chest and held him. He put his arms round her, and felt her body shake.

  When he looked towards the cars, he saw his father frowning at him. He didn't know how long they glared at each other, antlers locked, but it was his father who blinked first.

  18 DECEMBER

  SCHLOSSKAPPEL AND ITS GROUNDS WERE COVERED WITH THICK snow. Helmut's crystal mausoleum pointed up at the sky like an icy thorn. Helmut paced inside the cone, gesturing to the central plinth. 'This is where my body will be displayed, on this revolving plinth, to look down across the lawns.'

  Professor Gerhard Heyne removed his fedora, scratched his bald head and stared up at the panes of glass that formed the mausoleum's crystal shell. 'But it's mirrored, photosensitive glass, Herr Kappel. You can't look out.'

  Helmut walked over to it and grinned at his reflection. 'I'm not going to need a view when I'm dead. I'm going to be the view. The glass was designed to meet your specifications for protecting my plastinated body from ultraviolet light and extreme temperatures, but it won't stop people seeing into the mausoleum, which is all I care about. Once inside they'll be able to walk round the plinth. And if they want a better view of me, they can walk round the spiral gantry.' He pointed to a metal double spiral staircase that followed the conical glass up fifteen feet then wound down. He imagined a never-ending queue of worshippers waiting to feast their eyes upon him. 'So I'll need to look my best.'

  Heyne reached into the large Gladstone bag by his feet and retrieved a disembodied human head. 'When I replace your bodily fluids with my resin compound you will be preserved as you appear in death, but I can match a photographic reference, erase signs of age and disease and make you look younger. How old do you want to appear?' The anatomist raised the head and presented it to him. It belonged to a young male. He was smiling and the eyes radiated life. 'This man was over forty-five when he died, but I smoothed his flesh and reversed the effects of gravity so that he looks in his late twenties. His face is now frozen at that age. For ever.'

  'May I touch it?'

  'Of course.'

  'I thought it would feel waxen, but it doesn't.'

  'It's not wax.'

  Helmut looked Heyne in the eye. 'However and whenever I die I want to look as I do now. This is important. I don't care if you use artistic licence on other parts of my body, but my face must look exactly as it does now. No cosmetic touches. Nothing.'

  'I understand. My laser scanner can measure the contours of your face to within a millionth of a millimetre. What pose do you want your body to adopt?' He reached into his bag again and brought out a digital camera, a laptop and a small pen device on a stand. He powered up the laptop, opened a file and turned the screen to Helmut. It showed a selection of poses: one figure stood erect, arm outstretched, finger pointing purposefully into the distance, as though to the future.

  'That one,' he said.

  'An excellent choice.' Heyne handed Helmut a sheaf of papers and a pen. 'Before I record your facial measurements, please sign this. It provides authorization and confirms the agreed fee.'

  Helmut glanced at the document, checking the text was as his lawyers had agreed, then signed the three copies and handed them back to Heyne.

  The anatomist placed his laptop on the plinth and the pen laser next to it. He plugged it into the laptop's firewire slot, and asked Helmut to be still. 'This won't take long.'

  He took photographs of Helmut's head from every angle, while the pen laser emitted a harmless blue beam that traced and recorded the contours of his face. The process took less than ten minutes. As Heyne packed up his equipment, the mausoleum door opened. The anatomist did a double-take when he saw Joachim. He wore a heavy overcoat and his shoes were caked with snow.

  'My second son,' Helmut said.

  'I see the likeness. It's uncanny.'

  'Joachim is a true Kappel.'

  Joachim beamed with pride as Heyne shook Helmut's hand and left.

  'So, Joachim, is everything ready for the wedding?' . Joachim patted the small aluminium case in his right hand. 'With the blood samples Max took from the four clients I've made up all the nature-identical love drugs for the bridesmaids, one temporary and one permanent version for each.'

  Helmut's eyes narrowed. 'You've modified the permanent version as we discussed.'

  'Yes, Vati.'

  'Excellent.' Helmut pulled out his gold cigarette case, flipped it open and offered Joachim a cigarette. He noted with satisfaction that his son's fingers trembled as he took one; he saw it as the rare reward Helmut intended it to be. When he reached across with his lighter and lit his son's cigarette, Joachim's eyes sparkled with almost fanatical adoration. His younger son had always been biddable and hungry for approval, but since Helmut had injected him with the drug, he had been de
voted to him, carrying out whatever task he required with unquestioning loyalty and discretion. 'And Venus?' Helmut asked. 'Will you have everything ready for the wedding?' Joachim reached into his aluminium case and brought out a vial of clear liquid. 'It's not powder,' Helmut said.

  'No, the vector you requested I use for Venus means it has to be a liquid.' He shook the vial. 'This isn't quite the finished article but it'll be ready for our final review meeting before we fly out.'

  'Will it do everything we discussed?'

  Joachim nodded. 'I'm combining two tested elements -- a vector I developed at Comvec, and Bacci's NiL Forty-two - so I know Venus will work. The process takes time to perfect but don't worry, Vati, it'll do exactly what you want it to.'

  'What we both want it to, Joachim.' Helmut put his hand on his son's cheek and turned his head to the mirrored glass so that both their faces were reflected in it. In the dark glass the subtleties of age were removed and they looked almost identical, like twins. 'Look into the future, Joachim. If you get this right, you could well become my heir. Max might be the older but that doesn't mean he has to take over. And think of what this means for the longer term. You could have the whole world at your feet. Remember, Joachim, you're creating Venus for us, not just for me.'