“But you must understand that our position—mine, the paper’s, the scientists’, the public’s—will be one of extreme skepticism. It’s not like a court of law—your word will be doubted until it can be proved true. And I won’t leave any stone unturned.”

“I understand that. But I don’t have anything to hide so I have nothing to worry about.”

“What about your husband? Is he in agreement?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And he’s not putting you under any pressure to . . . prove yourself?”

“No, no. He already believes me absolutely.”

“All the same, I think I’d like to speak to him, if that’s all right with you. And even if it isn’t,” Jean added, remembering the stones unturned.

Mrs. Tilbury glanced at her watch. “He doesn’t get home until six-thirty. He has a jeweler’s shop near Covent Garden—Bedford Street. There is a telephone at the shop. We don’t have one here.”

Jean turned her notepad to face her and Mrs. Tilbury wrote down his name and number in her strange continental script; those crossed sevens and the nines like little gs.

“Thank you,” said Jean, though she had no intention of calling him. She planned to turn up at his shop unannounced. She closed her notebook to signal that the interview was over.

“What happens now?” asked Mrs. Tilbury.

“I’m going to contact the geneticist who wrote the original article and ask if there are some tests that can be run on you and Margaret to establish whether or not parthenogenesis took place. You’d need to be able to get up to London. I assume that’s not going to be a problem?”

“Will you come with us?”

Jean hadn’t considered this far ahead, but she only hesitated for a second before saying, “Yes, of course.”

The paper would have to live with it. It was her story now and she’d do it her way. Someone else could take over The Garden Week by Week if it got too much. She surely couldn’t be the only person on the paper who knew how to prune roses.

“Oh good.”

Mrs. Tilbury seemed relieved, as though she was depending on Jean to be some kind of advocate and protector throughout the whole process.

Jean felt the tug of friendship, but it would have to be resisted. If it came to delivering unwelcome news in due course then it was essential to maintain a sensible, professional distance.

3

“So you’re saying you believe her?”

“I’m saying I haven’t found any reason to disbelieve her. Yet.”

Jean sat in Roy Drake’s office, watching him water the desiccated plants on the window ledge. A column of smoke rose straight from his parked cigarette and then rippled into the already dense cloud below the ceiling. While he had his back to her Jean took a sly puff and replaced the cigarette on the ashtray.

“Oh, sorry, have one of mine,” he said without turning round.

Jean gave a start and looked up, their eyes meeting in the reflection in the window.