The last delivery

“At six on Friday, Amina parked her bicycle outside number seventeen with the final parcel of her shift. Rain had soaked the paper label, but she could still read the surname: Moss. The house had a blue door and no bell. She knocked twice, then checked the delivery instructions on her phone. Leave with recipient only. A warm kitchen window glowed beside her; behind the glass, an empty chair faced a small table.

Rain stitched silver lines between the gutter and the path. The parcel softened beneath her fingers, its corners losing their certainty. From inside came the slow scrape of furniture, then silence. Amina imagined the waiting bus, her brother at the stop, the dinner she had promised to bring. The house offered no answer. Its lit window seemed less like a welcome than a picture of warmth hung where she could not reach it.

She knocked a third time. A voice asked her to wait. It was so faint that she almost mistook it for the radio. She put the parcel beneath her jacket and leaned the bicycle against the wall. She had already written 'No response' on the screen; now she deleted the words. On the opposite side of the road, a driver sounded a horn at a car that had not moved quickly enough when the lights changed.

The door opened a few inches. Mr Moss stood behind it with a walking frame. 'I'm sorry,' he said, before looking at the parcel. Amina told him there was no problem, although a problem was exactly what she had been thinking. He explained that the box held a replacement hearing aid. The old one had stopped working that morning. She asked whether he wanted her to put it on the kitchen table. He stepped carefully aside.

The room smelled of toast. Amina set down the parcel and showed him where the rain had loosened the tape. Her phone vibrated: her brother asking where she was. She typed that she was running late and would explain. Mr Moss thanked her twice, once for the delivery and once for waiting. Outside, she pressed 'Delivered'. The screen showed the same small green tick it always showed. She looked at it for a moment, then put the phone away.”

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.