Tom looked at the address on the envelope, which read Jessica Wilson, care of Tom Durning. He turned the fat envelope over in his hands. During a brief conversation with Jess, it had been agreed that Tom should telephone Bonnie again, giving her his whereabouts should she need to make further contact. She had rung a few days later to say that Olivia was sending a letter to Jess via him, and he now assumed that this had to be that letter. He licked his lips nervously. He held in his hands what could prove to be the answer to the mystery surrounding the night of the girls’ birth – or at least he hoped he did. It would be such a shame if it all came to naught. He wondered whether to ring Jess and let her know the letter had arrived, then thought better of it. This was Jess and Dana’s life, not his. He would forward the letter post-haste. Jess had asked him whether Bonnie had mentioned Dana being her twin, but he felt certain she had not, although, as he told Jess, the conversation had been centred on Bonnie’s interaction with Olivia and the role of Olivia’s father, and not the whys and wherefores surrounding the girls themselves.

‘I’ll see what she has to say, and go from there,’ Jess had said, ‘but if this woman only mentions me, then we’ll know straight away she’s not our mother.’

He wrote Jess’s address on the new envelope and kissed it for luck. Silly, he knew, because the girls were happy as they were.

All her life Jess had believed herself to be an only child, right up to the day she had found a photograph of Dana in someone else’s scrapbook. It had been obvious to everyone that the resemblance between the girls wasn’t just passing, but identical. They had done some digging and found out where Dana was based and Tom had been present when Dana and Jess met for the first time. Jess had been uncertain as to the reaction she would receive, but after getting over the initial shock, Dana had proved to be both warm and welcoming. It turned out that she had been adopted by a family of travellers, and her earlier life had been far better than Jess’s.

This meeting had happened in the spring of 1943, and the girls had formed a strong bond. When Tom had proposed to Jess on the eve of Christmas 1943, the girls had immediately talked Tom and Lenny into the idea of having a double wedding. Tom smiled as he recalled Jess and Dana’s faces as they examined the pearl ring which Tom’s Great-Aunt Edna had given him as an engagement ring for Jess.

‘Just imagine the sight of us walking down the aisle with Mum in the middle,’ Dana had said excitedly.