A Year and A Day

The relief was immense. If the policy was void there was no reason for me to die in a year and a day. I could survive Halloween without being awake all night waiting to be killed.

"No." I tried to keep my voice calm. "I didn't remember that."

"We discussed it when we were reviewing our standing orders. It was a death-only policy. We have mortgage protection on the property that provided for continued payment for your incapacity and would pay off the mortgage in full if either of us died. That policy is paying the instalments on the mortgage now. We couldn't see the need for an accident policy that paid only on death. That's why we stopped it and changed for the policy that did pay out. We should have thrown the old document away months ago. OK, Guy?"

"Yes. Could I have a hug, please?"

"Of course."

I was hugged and kissed. My worries about Clare and Helen as possible assassins had gone. My head rested against Clare's breasts, nothing like the nightmare breasts that had been suffocating me last night.

Despite my reassurance the nightmare kept recurring. In the week before Halloween Clare had to come downstairs to comfort me on a couple of nights.

On the 31st October Helen arrived for lunch with us. She often did because she found cooking for herself a bore. She would help Clare in the kitchen or chat with me if the meal was simple to prepare.

Over lunch I sensed that Clare and Helen wanted to say something to me but we unsure how to begin. As we finished I said:

"Well? What is it?"

"What's what, Alan?" Clare replied.

"What you two want to say to me and haven't."

"Were we that obvious?" Helen asked.

"Yes. When two women I love are working themselves into a frazzle I do notice."

"Thanks for the word 'love', Guy. That makes it easier." Helen looked at Clare. Clare nodded. "I'm selling my house and moving to that new bungalow being built next door but one."

"That sounds great. There must be a catch. You could have told me that quite easily."

"There is, Guy. Completion of my house sale is in two days time. The bungalow won't be ready for three weeks at the earliest."

"And you want to stay with us until the bungalow is ready?"

They nodded.

"Then where's the problem? You are welcome here anytime."

"Thank you, Guy. We thought you would say that. What I want as well is to store my furniture in your barn. That would mean stacking what is in there now."

"Then why not?"

Helen rushed across to me and hugged me. Clare joined her. For a few minutes I was busy responding to their kissing.

"We were worried that you wouldn't want your stock disturbed," Clare said.

"I haven't been in the barn for nearly a year. I doubt if I can remember where I put everything. Rearranging it won't matter. When I am back to normal a lot of it should be sold anyway. Putting Helen's furniture in there for a few weeks won't matter."

"Can we do it now?" Helen asked.

"Of course. I'm sure you have already made arrangements. You didn't have to worry about my consent. Anything Clare agrees to I'd go along with. We don't argue about trivia. We trust each other. Come to that, I trust you, Helen. Why shouldn't I? You have helped to keep me alive and sane for the last year."

That brought another kiss.

"Make the phone call, Helen," Clare urged. "I'll take over the kissing of my husband."

"In a minute, Clare. I'm enjoying this," Helen replied.

"OK, OK. But he is my husband."

"Won't you share him with me?"

"Perhaps. If he agrees..."

I was in no position to agree. Helen's lips had covered mine.

"...and I'll take his silence as consent, Helen," Clare continued.

My enforced silence continued for another minute. Clare took over and kept me quiet the same way.

Helen rang the local removal firm. They had already given an estimate for rearranging the barn and moving her furniture. They would start at eight tomorrow morning.

That Halloween evening Clare and Helen went to a party. I sat up watching television until they returned. Halloween had no terrors for me now.

About an hour after their return Clare and Helen put me to bed. Clare enveloped me in that overdress and stapled the zips. They both kissed me before Clare lifted the side bars and locked them in place.

"Guy," Helen said as she was leaving, "I'm sleeping here tonight. If you have a repeat of that nightmare I'll be down. It is Halloween so you might have unpleasant dreams. I'm a lighter sleeper than Clare. That OK?"

"Yes, Helen. Thank you."

I thought of Halloween as the night of dead spirits. I remembered Alan. Why had he died? Was Nurse Jones' death as simple as it appeared? If it was Nurse Jones haunting my dreams, why? She hadn't killed anyone except Mr Akers and that had been an accident. She had died very conveniently for someone who might be a multiple killer. It seemed unlikely that the ghost of Nurse Jones would have any motive for trying to smother me.

If Nurse Jones had a ghost surely she would be seeking justice for herself and for her murdered patients, not trying to add to the number of deaths. If the ghost wasn't Nurse Jones then it must be the murderess. Yet as far as I knew no one else connected to the staff of the Nursing Home had died. If the ghost wasn't a ghost but was still a living woman, why should she want to kill me? My brain was whirling. Was Clare's explanation of the year and a day insurance policy true? I hadn't actually looked at the policy to check that it had been cancelled. It was still in that locked drawer with Nurse Jones' diary.

Why hadn't Clare read that shorthand diary? I could read it. Clare knew shorthand. Had she lied to me? I went to sleep trying to convince myself that Clare loved me and all my suspicions were misunderstandings that had rational explanations.

I woke up in the middle of the night. Someone seemed to be in the room with me again. That perfume was a faint clue that something wasn't right. I tried to sit up. The confining overdress prevented me. Then it was too late. A heavy body straddled me. A hand pressed me back to the bed. A cotton-covered breast stifled my cry for help. An arm around the back of my head dragged my face deeper into the softness.

My arms were pinioned too effectively to help me. I kicked out with my legs enough to rattle the bed. I thought I had managed a faint noise. I wasn't sure as the blood pounded in my ears. I kicked again and again as my breath ran out. Was this how some of the patients had died? Who could it be? It wasn't Clare. Her breasts weren't this large. I doubted that it was Helen. I had been held against her breasts. They didn't feel like this one and I trusted her.

I heard a thunder of feet on the stairs. My head was released and dropped to the bed. Faint sounds of retreating feet mixed with my gasping for air. The light came on and Helen entered the room like the Fifth Cavalry.

She grabbed me, ripped the zips up past the staples as if they weren't there and peeled that constricting overdress off me. I was still panting for breath and unable to say anything. She sat me on the side of the bed with my head lowered as I gasped.

When I got my breath back I said:

"Someone tried to suffocate me. I don't know who. I don't know how she got in. It seemed as if she was wearing one of the nurse's uniforms."

"Are you sure it wasn't a nightmare?" Helen asked.

"I'm sure. I was awake. I felt that someone was in the room. I was about to yell for you when she pushed me back and covered my face with her breast. I couldn't breathe and I couldn't get her off."

Helen didn't seem convinced. I could understand that. It didn't sound convincing to me.

"Can you smell a different perfume?" I asked.

"Perfume?"

"Yes. I was aware of her perfume before she attacked me."

Helen sniffed gently.

"Maybe. There is a hint of something that isn't me or Clare."

"Can you check that all the doors and windows are locked, please, Helen. I'm sure that someone got in. I don't know how."

"OK. If that will reassure you, I'll check."

She was back in a couple of minutes.

"All doors and windows were and are locked, except for the communicating door to the barn and no one can get into that."

That was true. After there had been a couple of attempts on my stock of antiques the main doors of the barn had been locked from the outside with a massive padlocked bar. It took two of us to shift it. The only other door led into the kitchen.

"Can you stay with me, please Helen. That scared me and I couldn't fight her off."

"OK. Even if it was only a nightmare the effect on you was bad. When I arrived I thought you were dying. You look better now."

"I feel better now."

"Move over."

I looked at her.

"Move over. I'm getting in bed with you."

I moved. Helen climbed in beside me. She shouldn't have been able to. Why not?

I squeaked. "The bars!"

"What?"

"The side bars on the bed. They're down."

"So they are."

"They shouldn't be. Clare put them up. You saw her do it. I couldn't have put them down while I was trussed up like an oven-ready chicken. So who did?"

"You're right. A nightmare couldn't have done that. You couldn't. I didn't. Clare didn't. She was still asleep and if she'd moved I'd have heard her. Perhaps there was an intruder after all."

"There was and she tried to suffocate me."

"I believe you. There's only one unlocked door – to the barn. I'm going to lock it now. If she's in the barn she'll have to stay there until the morning."

Helen went to the kitchen. I heard her lock and bolt the door. She went through the whole house, downstairs and upstairs. I listened to her progress carefully hoping that she didn't meet the intruder. She didn't.

"All clear. If there was someone in the house they're not in it now. You can sleep safe for the rest of the night."

She snuggled me against her breast. I had been right. Helen's breast was nothing like the one that had been smothering me. It was firmer and not quite so large. Her erect nipple pushed at her thin cotton nightdress. I opened my mouth to nibble it.

"If you are going to do that," Helen said quietly, "do it properly."

She unfastened her bodice and pulled my mouth over her nipple.

"Have a good suck. I'd like that."

So did I. I went to sleep with my mouth full of Helen's breast. I woke up with my mouth full of breast. Helen was smiling down at me as I sucked.

"What have you two been up to?" Clare's voice asked.

Helen's arm clamped me in place on her breast.

"We've had an exciting night. Someone tried to smother Guy..."

"It looks as if you're doing a good job yourself, Helen,"

"...and I disturbed her before she killed him."

I could see that Clare was puzzled. Helen's tone was serious.

"You mean it, don't you?"

"Yes, Clare. It's true. When I reached Guy he was panting for breath. I thought he was dying. If I had taken a few seconds more to get to him he would be dead now."

Helen released me and pulled her breast out of my mouth.

"Helen rescued me just in time. We think that the attacker may still be in the barn. I can't think of any other way she could have got to me."

"If you two are telling the truth then we need the police – now." Clare said distinctly.

"When I reached Guy the bed bars were down. He couldn't have done it. You had trussed him up. That convinced me."

"I locked those bars in place," Clare mused. "I stapled those zips shut. Guy couldn't have moved them and while he was inside that overdress he couldn't have unlocked the bars."

Helen and I nodded.

"Call the police. Now. Please Helen." Clare had decided to believe us.

Perhaps Helen should have rang the emergency line. She didn't. She rang the local police station. At seven in the morning they took a long time to answer. They took even longer to accept that she was serious about an attempted murderess locked in our barn. I think that because the sergeant knew her personally that he agreed to send a patrol car without using the blues and twos.

Clare and Helen met the policemen outside. Clare gave them the key to the barn's padlock. I wheeled myself outside to watch. As the four of them walked around the house to the barn they startled someone trying to open the padlock. He ran for it. The policemen caught him just before he reached me. We all recognised him as the local incompetent burglar, Ray.

The police handcuffed him and put him in their car. A few minutes later one of them came back to us.

"He says he was trying to release a friend trapped in your barn. He won't say who it is except that he referred to a 'she'. It looks as if you might be right. However she is, she must be desperate. Ray is so useless that he couldn't open a baby's piggy bank. He had no hope of getting past that padlock."

Another patrol car turned up. A policeman and policewoman got out. One of the policemen removed the padlock and swung the heavy bar out of the way. He heaved the barn door open as the policeman and policewoman poised themselves to intercept a running fugitive.

Nurse Jones walked out wearing her distinctive headdress. I gasped. It couldn't be. Nurse Jones was dead. Helen ran at her and dragged the headdress off before the police could stop her. A mass of blonde hair tumbled down. This was a much younger woman of the same build as Nurse Jones had been.

"Andrea!" Helen shouted.

It was Andrea Jones, Nurse Jones' daughter. The police arrested her. The policewoman said 'anything you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence..."

Andrea said a lot. For hours and hours. Clare, Helen and I had to go to the police station. I brought Nurse Jones' shorthand diary.

I resolved my suspicion about Clare not knowing the contents. Nurse Jones had written in an old Pitman shorthand. It was similar enough to the newer Pitman I had learned but nothing like the Teeline Clare and Helen had been taught. I had to explain the contents to the police. They would get it formally transcribed by an expert.

The phone call? Andrea's mobile had a flat battery so she'd used our extension phone in the barn to call Ray. He'd used callback.

The police didn't need to transcribe the diary. Andrea had been the ebay enquiry trying to get hold of it. After two hours Andrea confessed to attempting to murder me. She wanted Helen to be suspected and Alan's death re-examined. She had killed Alan too. She had been his lover, became pregnant and Alan had sent her to an illegal abortionist. She had lost the baby and the ability to have any babies ever. She blamed Helen for not letting Alan go. She hated Alan for her lost of fertility.

Helen had no idea that Alan wanted a divorce. Andrea wasn't his only conquest.

Andrea had visited Alan by arrangement when Helen was out with us. She had persuaded him into some bondage with the offer of some sex 'for old time's sake'. She had used the same type of overdress that Clare used on me to immobilise him, wrapped Helen's nightdress around his head so that he couldn't see what she was doing, and then smothered him with her skirted backside as she had done to several of the Nursing Home's patients.

Andrea had been one of the nurses who had helped us look after Gwen. She knew that Helen was our friend and visited us. She had copied our back door key so that she could come and go whenever she wanted. On one occasion when Helen had been nursing me Andrea had taken Helen's used uniform and hidden it in the barn, replacing it with one from the trunk. She had worn Helen's uniform over her own when trying to smother me. If I had died, Helen's uniform would show traces from her and me and not from Andrea. Andrea hoped that Helen would be convicted of my murder and suspected of murdering Alan.

It took several hours before Andrea admitted killing her mother. She knew that Nurse Jones suspected her. She had prepared for that night. She had phoned in sick yet had come to the Nursing Home dressed in one of her mother's headdresses. When she found her mother she took a ball of her own hair and pushed it into Nurse Jones' face. That might not have killed. It did incapacitate Nurse Jones enough for her daughter to bundle her into the spare room and on to a bed. As her mother gasped for breath from the asthma attack her daughter had calmly sat on her mother's face until the breathing stopped.

Andrea continued with her mother's rounds during the night, taking care that no member of staff saw her face between the drapes of the headdress. Just before the shift change in the morning she removed her headdress and uniform and left.

She was examined by psychiatrists and found unfit to plead. She was sent to a secure mental institution until she was recovered sufficiently to stand trial, if ever she did.

Clare, Helen and I were horrified by the confession. I was relieved that I had escaped death. Andrea had killed many times. Why hadn't she killed me at the first attempt? I'll never know.

We went back home and sat on a settee wrapped in each others' arms. We were in shock for several hours. When we had recovered we discussed what we should do. Two things were easy to decide. Clare wouldn't confine me in an overdress again. I was too vulnerable. We wanted that old bed moved.

Helen's removal men were easily persuaded to swap the old hospital bed for a double bed from Helen's house. That night I slept in it with my mouth full of Clare's breast and Helen's body snuggled against my back. I didn't have a spasm. I didn't have a nightmare. I had a wonderful night's sleep comforted by, and comforting, the two women I loved.

From then on I slept with one or other of them in my bed. My spasms were gone forever and I gradually gained strength and mobility until I could make love to Clare instead of being her passive dependent partner. Very occasionally I made love to Helen. I never did gain enough strength to satisfy both of them at once. I don't think I could have done even before my accident.

That Halloween changed my life. I survived one woman. I found love with two.