Chapter 9 chapter eight

When people are unlucky, misfortunes never come singly.I got up at seven o'clock, ignored Owen, avoided Miles, walked around Davie who was removing the deformed door beam, muttering something about settled cowboys, and grabbed a piece of toast on the way out, and turned on the intercom. Immediately received a message from Campbell, who asked me to pick up the package at Canonberry and deliver it to Conton.Twenty minutes later, as I was trudging along Hampstown Road, hungry, with traffic fuming in my face, the intercom crackled again, and Campbell told me to ride straight from Conton to Hagrid took the package.Hagrid was on a steep hill.I once visited the house, which is supposed to be the highest point in all of London.

Once on the way uphill, I passed a road sign that kindly informed me that my current location was at the same altitude as St. Paul's Cathedral.The lady who lived there was rich and elegant, and she was probably one of those people who didn't know poverty and disease, and didn't see a bum at the door.She lives in another world, a world of power, and sees us couriers as servants, which I guess we are.She never knew who I was.I'm just a small person serving her in the vast sea of ​​people.I told a story with a cyclist friend in Horse and Jockey: Once I was called to the bottom of the mountain to get Japanese food to take away, and then sent it to the top of the mountain.Panting and sweating while I delivered the package, she was immaculately dressed in linen and jewellery, and it was this contrast that I now thought led to the revolution.

why me?I spoke into the radio. Because you are right there. I had to send the package to Conton, buy a sweet crepe and coffee from a vendor on the shopping street, and set off in the drizzling rain.The Hamptons and Highgap area is home to a wealth of well-known families. The streets are full of tasteful shops, expensive restaurants and elite schools; girls wear flat caps and boys wear bright sports jackets , the mother drove the children to school in a four-wheel-drive RV, and lived in a luxurious mansion with flashing sirens at the door. There were not only gardens but even a golf course within the high walls.The family's house was set back from the road, and there were tulip trees in bloom in the front yard, and manicured wisterias fluttered in the wind on the ornate balcony, and a huge empty clay pot stood on the left and right sides of the balcony.I've never been inside the house, and I've only glimpsed the foyer.But the foyer alone was twice the size of my bedroom, and it smelled of polish, paint, leather, and money.

I jumped off the bicycle nimbly, leaned it carefully against a pillar on the balcony, and pressed the bell.After waiting for about thirty seconds, there was no response, so I pressed it again, this time holding it for a longer time before letting go, and then took a few steps back.Still no one answered, and a pang of anger formed in my chest.People like them call the poor courier all the way up the mountain on a whim, but they don't bother to show up and open the door. I took out my cell phone and checked the time: at 9:41, I called Campbell to make sure it was not a misunderstanding, but the line was busy.I knocked hard on the knocker.

Still no response.I knelt in front of the mailbox and pushed open the lid, which gave only a small glimpse of the inside.I peered into the house and saw several carpeted stairs.I turned my head, put my nose against the gap, and saw the clean wooden floor of the foyer.Other than that, there seems to be something else.I squinted my eyes and forced my face into the door.There was a smooth, beige thing that looked like skin, like part of an arm.I was half squatting, bent at a painful angle, trying to get a closer look.That arm was actually the wrist; and then, no matter how twisted my face was, I couldn't see anything else.

I called from the mailbox, but I could only hear my own voice echoing in the clean and empty room.Can you hear me? The arm, if it was an arm, remained motionless.I got up in a hurry, knocked on the door vigorously with two fists, and pressed the electric bell again, and its discreet music was played again.I peered into the house through the mailbox again.Nothing happened. Right now I have no choice.This is the first time in my life that I have dialed 119.The other party picked up the phone.What service do you need? I have to force myself to think. Probably an ambulance should be sent.Someone may be injured or ill.Someone fell in the house.I can see her arms.

I left my address and said I would wait until the ambulance arrived, and then I paced up and down the small lawn, not knowing what to do.Maybe the guy inside had a heart attack or a stroke.Or fall down the stairs and fall unconscious.I thought to myself, maybe that's not the arm at all, and if the ambulance arrives with a flashing blue light, someone will walk slowly down the road and I'll be the biggest idiot of the year. But if someone actually had a heart attack inside, shouldn't I act now?Or if she committed suicide by slitting her wrists and bleeding profusely, shouldn't you tie a tourniquet on her?In an emergency, isn't every second counting?I should have asked the paramedics on the phone.But, who knows so much?I thought about calling Mike if he had been in the army, he would know how to give first aid, but then changed my mind.Mike might have gone to work. Even if he wasn't at work, he would still be on the top floor. It was absolutely impossible for him to go downstairs to answer the phone.In the end it will be Dalio who answers the phone.

I kept shaking the door, then stood back to see if there was an open window on the second floor to climb.Then I took the tool kit out of my bike bag: screwdriver, universal wrench, inner tube for the tire, Swiss pocket knife: none of it worked.Before I knew what I was doing, I found myself lifting the entire bike and throwing it at the large glass window to the left of the balcony.Glass was smashed and burglar alarms blared. With gloved hands, I knocked out the remaining shards of glass from the window frame so I could climb in.I stood in the luxuriously furnished porch, walked through it, and entered the foyer.A woman lay face down on the shimmering wooden floor.One hand is raised above the head, one knee is bent.I couldn't move for a while, so I could only stand still and look down at her, letting the siren vibrate on my eardrum.The blond woman with bob hair in front of her was lightly dyed and expensively dyed; her bronze complexion was obviously tanned.A blue silk dressing gown on her body was pulled back, revealing her slender legs that had been shaved with beeswax to an impeccable level.I squatted beside her, feeling extremely fearful in my heart, and reached out to touch her arm.Still warm.I took a deep breath of relief and tried to turn the motionless body over.As soon as I flipped over, my hands flinched back in horror, and her head hit the floor with a thud.Her eyes were glazed, rolled up, her lips were swollen and purple.But more than that, her smooth face looked like it had been drawn with a red pen.But when I took a closer look, I realized that those lines were not drawn, but cut.Scars covered her cheeks and forehead, and even one eyelid was not spared.The iris was crushed, and white fluid seeped out.

I figured I should do something, chest compressions, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but then I noticed her glazed eyes and knew she was hopeless. I stood up, leaning against the door, covering my mouth with my hands, and the corpses on the ground filled my sight.Sirens boomed in the air, in my skull.I tried self-hypnosis and told myself it wasn't true.It's just a dream, it's my insanity.All I have to do is blink and find myself back in my normal life, riding my bike uphill in the rain to pick up packages.My attention is focused on other trivial matters.I thought about how clean the house was, almost spotless as far as the eye could see.How many hours a week do the cleaners have to clean to make it look like a model home in a magazine?I fantasize about how I'll recount this episode to my roommate later, knowing I'll tell it with horror and excitement.I thought of the slamming on the door, the anger at this woman, or people like her, and how badly we couriers had spoken of her in private, and if I should feel guilty for speaking ill of her?A question floats vaguely through my mind: Should I get a haircut?I remember it was Miles' birthday next week, and I had to buy him a present, but I had no idea what to buy.The gift of a new home and a fresh look reminds him of the gadgets we're moving?This reminds me of the need to find a place right away, not until the last minute, although I know, whether I make up my mind or not, I will probably put it off until the last minute and sleep on the floor of a friend's house for weeks, living out of a suitcase .I wondered, too, whether the blaring of the sirens could be damaging to hearing; and I wondered if forcing someone to accept the noise was a way of irritating them.It suddenly occurred to me that it would be better to wait outside; after all, there was nothing I could do here; besides, it seemed inappropriate to stare at the disheveled, lifeless female body.But I can't move.I began to think how amazing the human brain can hold so many opposing feelings and thoughts at once.All the while, I was staring at the unreal corpse on the ground, only a few meters away from me.

I pulled out my phone again and found my hands were shaking, but I didn't dial because at this moment, the siren sounded among the noise of the house siren.The ambulance finally came.I turned to open the door and saw it parked outside the house.People have started to gather on the road.I raised my hand to greet them, and saw a man and a woman running towards me.Then, as the two entered the garden, I saw their eyes shift from me to the body lying in the rear foyer, as I turned and vomited into a clay pot.