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to go into a nursing home. I felt really sorry for her because she loved the gardens. I told her-” He looked up. “Sorry. I’m talking to fill up space, I guess.”
    “Go on. I want to hear it.”
    Bobby sat back and relaxed a little. “I told her I loved flowers and plants and all that, that I did it for a living. She asked me if I knew anything about primulas, and I told her I know everything.” He looked at Jury and smiled slightly. “Sounds conceited, but I do know an awful lot. When she took me out to the back, to the gardens, I was stunned by the variety of plants. Camellias dripping over old stone walls, a blue forest of hydrangeas and lavender and bluebells, even a rock garden. You don’t see those much because they take such a lot of work. A huge spread of bright orange poppies. Even some mother-of-pearl poppies-a long sweep of them; it was lustrous.
    “The thing was I’d visit her a couple of times a week for a few months, and she said it was such a relief knowing the house would be in my hands. I took flowers to her in the nursing home until she died. It was only a few months later that she died. I felt awful when she did. And I know I’m talking too much, but it keeps me from thinking.” He stopped and regarded Jury.
    “Where are you from, Bobby?”
    “ County Kerry. When my parents died I came to England. I worked at this and that, finally for a nursery, and then a series of nurseries. The last was in High Wycombe. I seem to have a natural bent for this kind of thing. I seem to speak the language of flowers, if that doesn’t sound too sentimental.”
    Looking at all of these glowing colors and green leaves that seemed to want to burst beyond their crate and bucket boundaries, Jury believed it. “Did Mariah share your love of all this?” His gesture took in the stall.
    “Yes, very much so. She knew a lot about flowers-” He stopped suddenly. The dead Mariah blotted out memory of the living one.
    “You didn’t know anything about a double life that Mariah might have been leading?”
    “Double life?” He leaned down to reposition a large pot of hydrangeas and didn’t look at Jury.
    “Wouldn’t you describe it that way? She was gone regularly to London and…”
    Bobby put his hand on his forehead and pushed back his hair, as if he had a raging headache he couldn’t get rid of. Probably he did. “The woman police found… she’s just not like Mariah.” He shook his head. “Mariah was so… retiring, that’s the word I think of.” He picked a few yellowing leaves from the stem of a lavender rose. “Funny about Edna. I would have known.”
    “Mrs. Cox? You mean you could have made the identification?”
    He nodded. “I’d have known,” he said again. “I know I just said she wasn’t Mariah; I meant the idea of it. If I’d seen her, without hearing any of this, I’d have known her.”
    “Her aunt did know, on some level. It was a case of denial. I expect Mariah looked quite different, with that ginger hair, to allow anyone who didn’t want to believe it, not to believe it.”
    Bobby nodded again. “Well, then, maybe I’d have done the same as Edna; I don’t know. Nobody I know wanted to hurt Mariah, but the thing is, it might not be Mariah they wanted dead.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You spoke of a double life. It might’ve been the other one-that other self-the one you found. It could be the person who killed her didn’t even know Mariah existed. Because I can’t imagine anyone would want to hurt Mariah. That’s it, plain and simple.” He sat forward, elbows on knees, hands limply clasped, staring at the little bit of pavement not taken up by flower containers. He opened his mouth to say something but said nothing.
    He looked helplessly at the big container of blue hydrangeas near his leg, as if their language had finally failed him.

9
    Prada, Valentino, Fendi-Jury found himself in DS Cummins’s house holding a whiskey and looking at a wall of shoes, cubbyhole