‘It was worse for Rachel. She was in a coma after the crash and not expected to survive. It wasn’t until she came around that the doctors realised the injuries to her head had made her permanently deaf.’

Jane was surprised. ‘You were both in the crash?’

‘Yes. Not being able to hear anything after the crash made Rachel withdrawn and she stopped communicating with anyone, even me at first.’

Rachel nodded, then made some signs to Emma, and ended by touching her left wrist and holding her hand in a bent fist shape like Emma’s. Jane thought she’d grasped what she was saying.

‘Did you injure your hand in the accident?’ she asked Emma.

‘Yes, I had an open fracture, which, as you can see, never healed properly. But although my wrist movement is restricted, I can still use it well enough to work and do my sewing.’

Rachel made some signs to Emma.

‘She’s asking if your parents are still alive.’

Jane nodded.

‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’

‘I had a brother, but he died when I was four. My sister Pam is married and has a little boy.’

Rachel held her hand open in a vertical position in front of her nose and mouth, and moved it downwards while making a sad face.

‘She’s sorry about your brother; it must have been very upsetting for you,’ Emma said.

Jane felt she could be open with them after what she’d learnt about the sisters’ parents’ death.

‘I’d just turned four and he was three when he fell into a neighbour’s pond and drowned. I didn’t really understand what had happened at the time but my parents were devastated. Sadly, I have very little memory of Michael, but I do have some photographs of him. Do you have any of your parents?’

Emma shook her head. ‘Memories are all we have, Jane. When our uncle was looking after us, he cleared all our parents’ belongings out of the house and didn’t give us any pictures of them. Looking back, I think he thought it would be best for us to try and erase them from our memories.’

‘Have you ever tried to trace him?’

‘No. He never made any form of communication after putting us in care, so as far as we were concerned, he didn’t want to know us,’ Emma said bitterly.

Jane was curious about the twins’ childhood, their time in care, and what had happened after that, but time was pressing, and she needed to get a result, be it positive or negative, for DCI Murphy by the end of the day. She got out her pocket notebook and pen and looked at Rachel.