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Want to talk about it?' Phoebe asked.

Isabella walked to the bathroom and took off her robe. 'No, I'm fine. It was just a holiday romance. No one was hurt.' But when she stepped into the shower and closed her eyes, she saw only his face.

THE KAPPELCEMETERY WAS AT THE NORTHERN END OF THE SCHLOS Kappel estate on a raised plateau overlooking the large house and the glittering lake. In the distance Zurich stretched out like a toy town. As a child Max had always wondered why the dead needed such a prime location with such sweeping views.

Three days had passed since Antibes, and it was late afternoon when he returned to the Schloss. The air was cool, and the leaves were turning brown. As he walked up the path to the northern plateau he saw the first mausoleum's brass dome gleaming in the weak sunlight. Each housed a past leader of the Kappel dynasty. Some were constructed in marble and stone, others in granite, copper and brass. But all had been built with one objective in mind: to outlast the remains they contained.

As a boy, whenever he came home from boarding-school in England, his father would take him round the mausoleums, making him memorize where each of his ancestors was buried. Then he had to walk the dark corridors of the Schloss, matching a portrait to its mausoleum, giving names and dates. The focal point of this exercise was always Dieter Kappel. Whenever Max had passed his portrait, his father had made him retell the story of how Dieter had led the family back from Italy and saved it from extinction. At times it seemed that his entire childhood had been one long lesson. At school he was taught the dates of each king and queen of England, tracing the royal family back a thousand years, and during his holidays he had to learn the dates and lineage of his own family, going back almost half as long.

Max breathed in the mild air, automatically listing names and dates as he scanned the mausoleums. In the far corner, workmen in yellow hard hats toiled on the latest. His father had begun work on it as soon as he was diagnosed with cancer, and Max knew he was determined that it should outshine every other memorial to the dead -- past, present and future.

Although it was incomplete, the twenty-foot cone of photosensitive glass was already a spectacular sight. In the sunlight it dazzled like a vast, brilliant gemstone, and for a moment Max forgot about Antibes and his raw, jumbled thoughts. Through the translucent glass shell he could see a large plinth. Like a modern pharaoh his father had arranged for his body to be preserved permanently for posterity. He had hired the German anatomist Gerhard Heyne to plastinate his body when he died, replacing all its Moods and fluids with resin. It would then stand fully clothed on the plinth, looking down for ever on his estate. It was Helmut's attempt to achieve bis own immortality.

Max glanced behind him to a low, wide, modern building beside the Schloss. His father's temperature-controlled garage housed at least six cars. On the drive outside, a servant polished one of the racing-red Ferraris. He turned back to the glass mausoleum. For all the Kappel family's adherence to discretion, discipline and control, Max suspected that an exhibitionist streak ran through his father's veins: at heart Helmut was a frustrated showman.

'Max, you're back,' his father called to him, from the grass verge below the crystal cone.

Max noticed his father appeared different, younger: his haircut was shorter than usual and his light blue eyes were electric with excitement. He scrutinized Max and laid a hand on his shoulder. 'You look like you've been to hell and back. What was it like?'

Max didn't know what to say. How could he explain to his father, who didn't believe in love, what it was like to be in its thrall? He couldn't explain it to himself. There had been sublime moments with Isabella Bacci, but his memory of them was overwhelmed bythesensory overload and raw vulnerability he still felt. His forty-eight hours with her had been the most intense of his life -certainly since his mother's death.

It was one thing to dive and surrender to the euphoria of the deep. It was something else to take a drug that stirred feelings he hadn't previously been aware of into turmoil. The experience had threatened every certainty he relied on and he could feel panic welling inside him. He was afraid of nothing in the world but this had come from within himself, which unnerved him.

The drug had made him feel. It had made him care. It had made him weak. He was glad to have returned to his normal self.

His father gave the delighted smile of a teacher who has seen his pupil grasp a valuable lesson. 'I've always warned you about love, Max. Like Professor Bacci himself said, it's a genuine sickness, a plague. Even Plato called love a serious disease of the mind.'

'Well, I'm cured now and I won't go through that again.'

Helmut patted him on the back. 'That's why you should marry Delphine Chevalier.'

'I guess.'

His father's pale eyes lit up. 'So, this nature-identical love really works.'

Helmut's excitement was infectious. 'Yes, Vater. All we have to do now is decide what we want to do with it.'

'Excellent.'

THE WARM GLOW OF LIMITLESS POSSIBILITY BURNED WITHIN Helmut Kappel. His heir had returned unscathed by the drug, but living proof of its power. Trapani had been silenced. And Joachim, with Comvec, would master Bacci's technology.

'Do you know what this means, Max? The future of Kappel Privatbank is secure. It is exactly what we needed. Professor Bacci's preposterous love drug will save us.' He led Max down to the terrace and poured him a drink. 'The drug allows an individual to possess any person they desire. With it we can make anyone we choose fall helplessly, obsessively in love with anyone else. Our family may have risen above the need for love, but it's still the most powerful, insidious emotion. Think about it, Max! We have the power to grant a client the undying infatuation and devotion of whomever he desires. Not just sex but so-called true love -- for ever. So long as the client is willing to pay, he can possess anyone his heart desires. Anyone in the world.' He thought through the implications. 'But that's not all. We can even decide who he desires. We can control the entire market -- demand and supply.'

'It's important that we keep the drug's existence secret,' said Max, 'especially from our clients. We can sell them its effects and benefits but never the drug itself. We must always administer it ourselves, covertly, without their knowledge.'

Helmut nodded. 'As we've done consistently with poisons.'

'Exactly. This plays to our strengths and also means we maintain complete control over the drug and its effects, allowing us to use it again and again.'

Helmut scratched his chin. 'How do we convince clients that the drug works without telling them about it?'

'By using emotional blackmail. We give each client a free trial -- an irresistible, addictive taste of the drug's benefits -- and once they're hooked we threaten to take it away. Unless they pay. A lot.'

Helmut smiled. 'We could hold a blind auction. Make each client bid against himself.'

'Yes,' agreed Max. 'We could invite them to a secluded controlled location, perhaps an exclusive alpine hotel like the one in Zermatt we booked a couple of years ago. You remember when we held a skiing weekend for select clients?'

Helmut stood up and paced the terrace as Max reached for his laptop. 'We tell our target clients it's a loyalty weekend, a thank-you,' he said, 'and we inject each of them with the genetic profile of a pre-selected woman. We let their desire grow, men introduce the women. For two whole days their hearts' desires are sated and they gain a glimpse of heaven. Finally, when the trial period ends we explain that an auction is in play.' He was warming to the scheme. 'They won't know they haven't any competition. Our lovesick clients will bid whatever we demand to secure the love of their lives. The fear of losing the greatest happiness they've ever known will be too much to resist. And since they'll know nothing of our drug we can use it on other clients, again and again. We both know who the first clients should be.'

As Max bent over the laptop and accessed the bank's client database, Helmut listed the names, 'Hudsucker, Corbasson, Lysenko, Nadolny. The bastards who snubbed our bicentennial celebrations and threaten to close their accounts. How much is each of them worth? In total -- not just the accounts they have with us.'

Max checked their records. 'Each has assets in excess of one billon US dollars,' he said. 'Two in excess of three billion.'

'Excellent. We'll punish them and take their money.'

For the rest of the evening, and throughout the long cool night, Helmut sat on the terrace with his firstborn, drinking malt whisky and plotting how best to exploit the drug. They made notes, researched the target clients, and argued over what had to be done. By the time the sun rose over the lake they had arrived at a strategy with which he was satisfied.

At six thirty in the morning Helmut wiped his eyes. 'So we know what we want to do with Professor Bacci's drug, but what do we tell him?'

Whatever he wants to hear,' said Max. 'I'll develop a dummy business plan that reflects his vision. He need never know what we're really going to do with the drug.'

Helmut sipped his whisky. 'In that case I suggest we call a family meeting next week.'

'That'll allow me time to go to Bacci's laboratory in Turin and check out what he's got,' Max said. 'I'll take Joachim with me -- I'll brief him tomorrow.'

Helmut put down his glass. He had remembered something Bacci had said at their first meeting, which had seeded an idea of such preposterous, towering ambition that he had to check with Joachim whether it was even feasible. He certainly didn't want to tell Max about it yet. 'Let me brief Joachim. I'll explain how our plan depends on controlling the technology behind the drug, and reducing our dependence on the professor. Just make sure when you see Bacci that you reassure him we want him as a client.'

Helmut reached for a copy of Vogue, which was lying on the table. He opened it at a page he had marked earlier with a yellow Post-it. He studied it avidly and smiled. Although he had been up all night he felt younger than he had in years. He poured the remnants of the Glenmorangie into Max's glass, then raised his own in a toast.

At that moment Eva walked out on to the terrace in a silk kimono and sandals. Her hair was brushed back off her face and she wore full makeup even though she had just got out of bed. At the sight of the empty whisky bottle and the papers strewn over the teak table, her face screwed up in disgust. 'Have you two been out here all night?'

Helmut nodded and cast his eyes down at Vogue.

She picked up the empty whisky bottle between finger and thumb and held it away from her as if it was a dead rat. She glared at Helmut. 'Can I get you anything? Or have you had enough?'

Helmut's shoulders tensed. 'There is only one thing I need from you, Eva,' he rasped.

'Yes?'

'An immediate divorce.'

THEAGNELLI BUSINESS PARK WAS IN THE NORTHERN SUBURBS OF Turin, next to a dense wood of tall cypresses etched against a flawless blue sky. As Max drove up to the entrance and checked in with the gatehouse he scanned the nondescript boxlike buildings. A white sign showed a map of the park with a unit number beside each building. Bacci Projects was at unit twelve.

The site was quiet, although the car parks were full. Most of the businesses appeared to be software start-ups with gimmicky logos and American-sounding names: RiverSoft, Mountain View Solutions, Net Ark. He drove past a building with the logo VirtualX emblazoned down one side in black and gold letters, to a plain warehouse at the end of the site. There were no signs outside it, just a small white peg with '12' painted in red, protruding from the sun-browned grass. It hardly seemed the most fertile seedbed for a cutting-edge, world-changing technology. There was a lone car outside and a Cannondale mountain bike locked to a rack by the main door. He recognized the BMW convertible as Joachim's. His half-brother was in the driver's seat, waiting. Beneath his dark suit he wore a scarlet and cobalt blue Liberty print bow-tie with matching waistcoat. Max hadn't seen him since his trip to Antibes.

As they walked together to the main door, Joachim lit a black cigarette and flashed a knowing smile. 'So, Romeo, I wonder how Professor Bacci feels about what you and his only daughter got up to in Antibes?'

Max frowned. 'Let me deal with Bacci. You concentrate on checking out the equipment and the technical side.'

Joachim adjusted his glasses, but his smile didn't fade. 'Whatever.'

Bacci was waiting for them in the foyer. He wore a suit under his white lab coat and beamed at Max. Helmut had already notified him of the experiment's success but Max guessed he would have asked Isabella about her holiday.

Bacci waited for Joachim to extinguish his cigarette, then led them along a white, featureless corridor to a set of metal security doors. Max was surprised that the only security was a coded electronic lock, activated by a simple keypad. He had half expected a DNA or retinal scanner. 'I've sent my technician home so we can talk freely,' Bacci said, punching in a code and opening the door.

The immaculate white laboratory and gleaming apparatus were in total contrast to the bland, rundown exterior. The building and security might be unimpressive, but the contents were evidently world class. Beside him, Joachim nodded appreciatively; even Max could see that it easily matched what Joachim had at Comvec. The laboratory space seemed to be divided into two sections, on the right there were two doors and a host of stand-alone apparatus. The glass door at the far end of the right wall bore a yellow biohazard symbol and a notice: 'Warning! Level 2 Viral Agents'. The red door half-way down had 'Samples' etched into its glass windowpane. The left side of the laboratory contained what looked like a small production line.