The signal box

“At half past five, Arun arrived at the disused signal box with a canvas bag and his grandfather's instructions. He had come to collect a brass plate before the building was demolished on Monday. The railway beneath it was still busy, but no train stopped at the village now. From the platform he could see the plate through the upstairs window, its letters dark against the last of the daylight. He counted the steps to the door twice, delaying without admitting that he was doing so.

Inside, the room smelled of wet timber. Levers stood shoulder to shoulder like a row of patient soldiers, their red paint flaking onto the floor. The clock above them had surrendered at eleven minutes past two. Dust softened everything except the brass plate, which shone with the strange confidence of something that expected to remain. Arun placed his bag beside the door. Outside, a train approached; its vibration climbed the wooden walls before the sound arrived.

His grandfather had worked here for forty years. At home he spoke of trains as though they were neighbours: one habitually late, another impatient, another so reliable that you could set your watch by it. Arun had laughed at that, once. Now he found a pencil beside the old register, sharpened to a neat point. He imagined a hand setting it down, certain there would be another shift. He moved it carefully away from the plate.

The first screw came loose. The second would not turn. Arun leaned harder, and something struck the floor behind him. He stopped. The train had passed; the sudden quiet felt occupied. Near the door, his bag lay on its side. That was all. He laughed, but the sound was too quick, too loud. When he looked down again, he noticed a line scratched beneath the plate: a date, and his grandfather's initials. They had been hidden by the edge of the frame.

Arun took out his phone to photograph them. In its small light, the room no longer seemed empty. It contained the height of a man's reach, the pressure of a pencil, the worn place where two boots had rested. He loosened the second screw slowly. Before putting the plate in his bag, he touched the initials with his thumb. Then he left the sharpened pencil exactly where he had found it.”

Refer only to the first paragraph. Choose one answer for each item in the table. Write the four letters in order, labelling them 1 to 4. Each correct answer earns one mark.