Beatrice was alone with the silver watch in her palm and the time was one o'clock. If the man had told her the truth she had only eleven hours left to live. She tried to collect her thoughts and think logically. Either he was a very confused person and would probably try to murder her at twelve o'clock, or he really was the Devil.

Then she woke up. The whole thing had been a horrible nightmare.

Happy, but still trembling, she jumped out of bed. It was six o'clock on a bright summer morning.

It was in fact six o'clock on the sixth of June which is the sixth month but she had dreamt it was November and she was going to die!

This was the National Day and there would be singing and flag-waving and the Royal Family on all TV channels. Beatrice staggered to the window. She saw that everything was as it should be; there were greening elms and lime trees resplendent in the park below her flat.

She had seen the ghastly Omen films during the previous week. These were about the boy Damien who was born in Rome on the sixth of June and had grown up to take over the world. Perhaps this was the reason for her nightmare.

Anyway, it was impudent of the producer to use Sweden's National Day for this purpose; it was an affront to all Swedish people. However, the idea for the story came of course from the Bible, so to that extent, he could perhaps be forgiven.