“I can assure you I won’t pressure Rachel into making a statement or doing anything she doesn’t want to. The same goes for you, Emma. But your sister’s evidence could be really important.”
Chapter Fifteen
A light sprinkle of rain started to fall as Jane and Emma walked briskly along Tottenham High Road. Emma was wearing a warm black ankle-length mac and headscarf, and offered Jane her umbrella, but Jane moved closer and suggested they share it. As Emma transferred the umbrella to her left hand, Jane noticed that she had to place it into the palm, as her fingers were curled into a fist and she didn’t seem to be able to move them.
“I know you don’t want to report the abuse incidents you and Rachel have suffered to the police but you really should so there’s an official record. You also need to explain you’re worried any investigation would lead to further abuse. That way you’d also have the police on your side when you ask for a move.”
Emma stopped walking and looked at Jane.
“Could you maybe help us write a letter?”
“I’ll do what I can to help, but the local police are your best bet for direct communication with the council. My current inspector worked at Tottenham CID before being moved to the Flying Squad—he might know an experienced detective there you could talk to. I’ll have a word with him when I’m back at the office.”
“Thank you, Jane. I appreciate your help—and so will Rachel.”
“I don’t want to appear nosy, but can I ask how you ended up in a flat on the Broadwater?”
“It was the only place Haringey Council offered us. We hadn’t seen it and didn’t know what the estate was like when we accepted it.” She pointed across the road. “The sorting office is that way.”
Jane could see a railway bridge with a sign saying “Bruce Grove,” then as they walked under the bridge, the street sign for Moorfield Road on her left and the Bluebird cafe on the corner of the junction with Bruce Grove.
“That’s the cafe Rachel uses—the bingo and snooker hall are just up there on the other side of the road.”
Jane could tell from its shape and size that it had once been a large cinema.
As they turned into Moorfield Road, Jane noticed a menu stuck to the inside of the cafe window and pretended to look at it so she could see the layout of the interior. The premises were a reasonable size, with a lino floor and nine square wooden four-seater tables and chairs laid out in three rows of three. The tables were covered in red and white check plastic tablecloths, and on each one there was a red squeezy tomato-shaped sauce dispenser, pepper and salt shakers and a bowl of sugar lumps. The cooking and serving area were at the far end, and the cafe was about three quarters full of tradesmen having their lunch. Next to the menu was a notice saying: STAFF REQUIRED—MALE OR FEMALE—REASONABLE HOURLY RATES—APPLY WITHIN OR CALL NICK ON 808-9611.
As Jane got out her pocket notebook to jot down the name and phone number, two workmen got up from their table and left. The enticing smell of roast beef, potatoes and vegetables wafted out from the open door onto the street. One of the men did a thumbs-up to Emma and said, “All right, luv?,” but she ignored him. Jane recalled Emma had said that she’d never been in the cafe, but it seemed as if the man had recognized her.
Jane looked at her watch. “It’s nearly two o’clock, so we’d better make our way to the sorting office if we want to catch Rachel when she leaves work.”
“It’s just around the corner. I’ll nip in and tell her who you are first, if that’s OK with you?” Emma said as they approached the building.
Jane started to make a drawing of the layout of the Bluebird cafe in her pocket notebook while she waited. A few minutes later she saw Emma come out of the sorting office with Rachel, and was instantly struck by the resemblance between them. The only difference was that Rachel’s shoulder-length hair had some grey streaks in it and she was wearing a Post Office uniform under her open black mac.
“Rachel, this is Jane Tennison.”
“I’m pleased to meet you. It hadn’t dawned on me you were twins,” Jane said.
“Born identical, but different now we’re older,” Emma remarked.
Rachel, with her right hand closed in a thumbs-up position, brushed her thumb along her chin before holding her index fingers upright in front of her body. She moved her fingers towards each other, so they touched and then pointed them at Jane, who was unsure what she was signing, apart from “hello.”
“Rachel said she’s pleased to meet you,” Emma told her.
Jane smiled as she shook hands with Rachel, then spoke slowly, accentuating her lip movements.
“I’m very . . . pleased . . . to meet . . . you too—”
Emma interjected. “It’s OK, Jane, you can speak normally—it’s actually easier for Rachel to understand what you’re saying if you do.”
“I’m sorry, I hope you weren’t offended.”
Rachel shrugged her shoulders and did some sign language to Emma.
“She said she can’t hear you—so no offence taken.”
Jane smiled awkwardly at the joke. “Are you happy to talk to me about the men you saw in the cafe on Monday who you thought were talking about a robbery?”
She looked anxious and did some more sign language to Emma, who translated.
“I told her you were investigating a robbery. Rachel’s very nervous and doesn’t want to talk about it near the cafe or in the police station.”
Jane looked at Rachel. “That’s totally understandable. We can do it at your flat if you like?”
Rachel nodded.
“My car’s just up the road. Where do you live?”
“She lives with me on the Broadwater Farm.” Emma turned away from her sister and looked at Jane. “While I was in the sorting office she told me the same two men were in the cafe this morning.”
Driving Rachel and Emma to Broadwater Farm, Jane knew that Teflon and Cam would think she was mad going there on her own and was worried about parking her car on the estate. But she knew that every time the sisters left their flat, they risked verbal or physical abuse, and if they didn’t let it stop them going about their business, neither would she.
As Jane approached the estate, Emma told her it might be best if she left her car in a side street and they walked to the flat.
“Your car’s really conspicuous and it might get damaged or stolen if you leave it on the estate.” Emma pointed to a street on the right. “Your car will be safe down there.”
“As it happens, my boss thinks my car looks like a custard tart,” Jane remarked.
Emma laughed, turned to Rachel and repeated what Jane had said, but she didn’t smile.
Jane checked the rear-view mirror and could see Rachel was frowning and looking out of the window. She looked forward as she spoke to Emma.
“Can Rachel talk at all?”
“Being deaf she can’t hear what she says, so her voice is very monotone and sounds like she’s got a really bad throat. At first she tried speaking, but got fed up with people looking at her as if she was mentally ill.”
Jane wondered if Rachel wasn’t born deaf but felt awkward asking Emma, as if she was talking about Rachel behind her back.
Jane felt nervous walking through the estate, but thankfully there were only a few people about, who didn’t pay any attention to them. The lift door at Tangmere House was still stuck open, and although the pool of urine in it had dried out, the smell was still overpowering. Rachel pinched her nose and pulled a face, implying how bad it was.
“Sorry about the state of the lifts,” Emma said.
“It’s not your fault. Is there no caretaker to clean or repair them?”
Emma sighed. “They’ve been advertising for a new caretaker for months, but no one wants the job. The engineers do come now and again to repair the lift but as soon as they have, the kids break it again.”
Jane shook her head sadly. “I can understand why you want to move away from here.”
“The flats have bee
n poorly maintained by the council, there are water leakages, damp and electrical faults. We recently had an infestation of cockroaches and me and Rachel had to deal with it ourselves. The walkways that connect the blocks are dangerous. They provide easy escape routes, so people often get robbed on them.”
As they walked up the stairs Jane realized how lucky she was to have a place of her own in a nice part of London. She’d taken a liking to Emma and Rachel, and it seemed so unfair that they should have to live on a rundown and crime-ridden estate. She suspected that even if she did put a word in with the council on the sisters’ behalf, they probably wouldn’t be given preferential treatment.
As Emma unlocked the flat door Rachel held her open hands, palms up, towards Jane. She bent her fingers back and forth at the knuckles in short, repeated movements, then put the tips of her fingers together to form the shape of a roof.
“She’s welcoming you to our flat,” Emma said.
Jane smiled and said, “Thank you.”
The kitchen was to the right and opposite it a cupboard storage space, next to which was a bathroom, then a separate toilet and another room, which Jane suspected was a bedroom. Opposite was a room with the door open, in which Jane could see two single beds with handmade multicolored patchwork throws on them. At the end of the hallway Emma opened a door, which led in to a reasonably sized living room. As Jane walked into the room, she recognized the musty smell of dampness and could see a small area of black mold on the wall under the large wooden-framed double window. Emma turned on the electric fire.
“Sorry about the damp smell—once the room heats up it goes away. Rainwater’s been leaking in through the window frame, which is starting to rot. We keep cleaning the mold off with bleach and water, but it always comes back.”
Rachel looked at Jane and mimed drinking a cup of tea from a saucer.
“That would be lovely,” Jane replied, and Rachel went to the kitchen.
“Let me take your coat and I’ll put it in the hallway cupboard for now.”
While Emma helped Rachel make the tea, Jane looked around the neat and tidy carpeted living room. In front of the two-seater settee was a small wooden coffee table. On it were some colored sketches of different styles of skirts, dresses and women’s blouses, which Jane assumed were sewing designs. On the wall above the fireplace were some small black chalk figure drawings; there was one of a young girl kneeling and cleaning a floor, a similar one with an older woman doing the same thing and another of an old man digging in a field with a spade. The drawings looked familiar, but Jane couldn’t remember where she’d seen them before.
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 were so young. It must have been awful for you both.”
“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 realized 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 learned about the sisters’ parents’ death.
“I’d just turned four and he was three when he fell into a neighbor’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.
“I’m not from Tottenham CID—I
actually work for the Flying Squad. We investigate robberies and your details were passed to us by the sergeant Emma spoke to on Tuesday. Are you still happy to talk to me about what you saw and lip-read in the cafe on Monday morning?”
Rachel nodded and did a hand movement as if she was holding a pen and writing on her hand, then jumped out of her chair and left the room.
“Did I say something to upset her?”
“No, she’s just going to get the pad that she made notes in.”
Rachel returned to the room and offered the notepad to Jane. Jane signaled for her to keep it.
“It would be better if I read what you’ve written after I’ve interviewed you. You can use your notes to refresh your memory of what happened as we go along. I was wondering what’s the best way to do this. Should I speak to you direct, or to Emma, who can then sign the questions to you?”
Emma interjected, “It might be best to do both, just in case she has difficulty with anything you ask. I can translate her replies for you if they’re more than a nod or shake of the head.”
Rachel did a thumbs-up.
“As you tell me what happened, take your time, and if you change your mind about anything then please tell me. Firstly, Rachel, I just need to confirm that you’re referring to the Bluebird Cafe in Bruce Grove, Tottenham.” Rachel nodded, and Jane continued. “And the date you saw the two men who might have been talking about a robbery was Monday the twenty-first of April.”
Rachel did another thumbs-up.
“Had you seen them in the cafe before?”
Rachel nodded.
“Do you know their names by any chance?”
“I asked her that the other night and she said she doesn’t, but at one point the man whose lips she read referred to the man sitting opposite him as Tommy.”
The Dirty Dozen Page 20
