At the back of the room was a four-seater drop-leaf wooden dining table with two wooden chairs. Up against the far wall were three tall mahogany bookshelves, which, like the dining table, looked as good as new. The shelves were filled with an array of books: classics by the Brontë sisters, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy, as well as Shakespeare’s plays and The Canterbury Tales. There were also books by Agatha Christie and horror stories by Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley, next to which were the twenty-three children’s tales written by Beatrix Potter and some Enid Blyton stories.

‘Do you take milk and sugar?’

Emma put a tray with tea things on the coffee table. Rachel followed behind with some biscuits and vanilla slices. Jane took one of the slices and sat down on one end of the settee, while Emma sat next to her in an armchair. Rachel moved the other armchair into a position where she could see their lip movements and sat down.

‘You have a lot of books,’ Jane remarked.

‘We’ve always liked to read since we were very young, and haven’t bothered with a TV due to Rachel’s deafness. We like to go to book fairs and buy second-hand ones.’

‘Did you make the furniture covers yourself?’ Jane asked Emma.

‘Yes, do you like them?’ She poured Jane a cup of tea.

‘They’re lovely – and so are the sketches of the dresses and blouses.’

‘Rachel’s the artist – I explain my ideas to her and she brings them to life on paper, then I make them.’

Jane looked at Rachel. ‘You are very talented.’

Rachel smiled. She held her closed right hand to her chest, then extended her index and middle fingers in front of her face before moving them downwards in a snake-like motion and proudly pointing to the chalk drawings on the wall. Emma was about to translate, but Jane instinctively knew what Rachel had signed.

‘You did all those sketches.’

Rachel did a thumbs-up, then a scissors motion with her fingers by her left ear and pulled a sad face.

‘I thought they looked familiar – are the sketches copies of Van Gogh’s paintings?’

Rachel nodded.

‘I remember them from art studies at school when I was sixteen. Your drawings are as good as the real thing!’

Rachel signed ‘Thank you’.

Jane thought it strange that were no individual or family photographs in the room.

‘Do you have any family in London?’ she asked, and Rachel shook her head.

‘Not that we know of. Our parents died in a car crash when we were six, then we stayed with our uncle in Wood Green before we were put into a care home,’ Emma said, showing no sign of emotion.

‘I’m sorry – I can’t begin to imagine what it would be like to lose your parents when you’re so young. It must have been awful for you both.’