by Shaun Baines
"I could ask you the same thing," Norman said, attempting to block the doorway with his own wraith-like presence. "I caught her snooping around."
"She's a journalist. What do you expect?" Callum grinned at Holly before returning his attention to Norman. "Where I'm from, we don't treat women that way."
"What are you doing here?" Norman asked.
Callum reached behind him and pulled out the copy of the newspaper he'd stolen. "I was asking Mrs Tweddle about her past."
Opening it, he showed it to Holly, who scanned the words quickly.
"It's the Little Belton Herald. From years ago," she said. "It's about a gallery exhibiting artwork. Mrs Tweddle's artwork. It has a picture of her next to the paintings."
Mrs Tweddle stood from the chair, her uncertain gait solidifying into something harder.
"That's what you learned from Isabella Guteridge," Callum said.
Discarding her woolly hat to the floor, Mrs Tweddle looked to the door. "It was a long time ago. I don't paint anymore. My eyes are bad. I can't even see what you're reading."
"Except you have the eyes of a twenty-year-old, remember?" Holly said, folding the newspaper with a snap.
"You're being ridiculous." Mrs Tweddle mopped her brow with a gloved hand. "It's too hot. I have to leave."
Holly rubbed her arm where Norman had grabbed her. As she pulled her hand away, she noticed her fingers were coated in blue paint.
Close to fainting, Mrs Tweddle tore off her gloves and threw them into the fire. She wiped her damp cheeks with the heel of her hand and smeared them in the same blue paint.
"I'm not listening to this nonsense," she said, marching out of the room.
But Norman jumped in her path, holding out his hands as if he was attempting to stop traffic.
"Get out of my way, you silly little beast," Mrs Tweddle shouted. "You'll get us both caught."
But Norman remained steady, colour finally returning to his grey face.
"Not this time," he said. "This time, I'm going to call the police."
***
"I'm sorry for everything I put you through," Norman said.
They stood in the cellar, watching Callum store the manor's paintings into wooden boxes. Holly's breath crystallised in front of her face and she pulled her coat closer.
Callum needed somewhere cool to store the paintings.
So did Mrs Tweddle.
When the police arrived in a haze of flashing lights, they had discovered a storage unit in her home; the same room Norman had left to confront Holly on the landing. It was filled with paintings. Most of them belonged to Bartholomew Guteridge. All of them had been taken from Black Rock Manor, but some of them were not what they seemed.
Mrs Tweddle had been escorted to the police station to answer some very serious questions. Norman was due to make an official statement, but based on the information he'd supplied at the scene, supported by Holly's own account of events, he'd been granted a degree of leniency.
It was the Little Belton way.
"How did you get involved?" Holly asked him.
Norman's grey skin had taken on some colour since Mrs Tweddle's arrest, but it drained in the face of Holly's question.
"At first, she was like the rest of my clients," Norman said. "Mrs Tweddle was lonely. Keen for company and that was why I was there. As the weeks passed, she demanded more and more of my time. She watched me like a hawk. Questioned my every move."
Holly jammed her hands under her armpits, desperate to keep them warm. "So the rest of your work suffered. That's why your other clients complained."
"Not exactly," Norman said. He reached into his pockets and retrieved a pair of gloves, offering them to Holly. "One day, she said she was organising a party for all the people I looked after. A sort of celebration of me. I found out later that Mrs Tweddle had no intention of bringing us all together. Her letters were filled with accusations, intended on ruining my reputation as a carer."
"As soon as the rumours began to spread," Holly said, "Home Care Angels had no choice, but to cut you loose."
"I had no idea at the time, but as my clients found new carers and Mrs Tweddle's party failed to materialise, my suspicions grew. She became my only client. I was desperate for money and she suggested I move in with her to save on rent and travelling expenses. It was a trap and I fell for it."
Callum wrestled a lid onto a wooden crate. Lifting a hammer, he drove in the nails keeping the paintings secure.
"I don't understand," he said between bangs. "What's this got to do with The Faithful Ornament?"
Norman shivered, but it was unclear to Holly if it was due to the cold or his inner turmoil.
"When Mrs Tweddle worked for Isabella Guteridge, she became one of her students," Norman said. "Bartholomew taught Isabella his technique, but couldn't inspire his flair. Isabella was bitter from her lack of success. Not only did Isabella teach Mrs Tweddle to paint, she taught her to hate, to the extent Mrs Tweddle wouldn't even acknowledge Bartholomew's existence."
"But she knew about Mr Guteridge," Holly said, "because she worked at the manor as a maid. Did she ask you to steal his paintings?"
Norman hung his head. "It was wrong, but I was at her mercy. I sneaked into the manor and took them back to Cobalt Cottage. Mrs Tweddle knew we'd be discovered eventually so she had an idea. She'd replace the originals with fakes she painted herself. The manor was empty. No-one would know."
Callum struck the last nail with more force than was necessary. The sound of his hammer echoed around the cellar.
"I knew I was right to secure this place," he said. "I was just too late."
"She had no intention of getting rich from selling them," Norman said. "Mrs Tweddle wanted to keep them from being appreciated by the wider public. I think that's what finally broke her hold over me. I may have stolen the paintings from the manor, but she was stealing them from the whole world."
"Why didn't you go to the police?" Holly asked.
"Who would believe me?" Norman asked back. "My reputation was in tatters and she was a kindly, old woman who had taken in a stray. She'd thought of everything, even insisting I no longer clean the house. Any police officer coming into that hallway would think I was somehow abusing her. Not the other way around."
Holly was about to defend the constabulary, but as she'd leapt to the same conclusion, she decided to keep quiet. She placed a gentle hand on Norman's shoulder and encouraged him to continue.
"I was due to return the forgery of The Faithful Ornament when I got an idea from all those Little Belton Heralds," he said. "I discovered the newspaper had a new journalist and that she was terrier-like in her tenacity."
Holly might have blushed if it hadn't been so cold.
"But I needed to get your attention without rousing Mrs Tweddle's suspicion," Norman said. "Like I said, I'm something of a painter myself. There were pictures of you both in the newspaper and I copied you into the painting. I knew it was only a matter of time before you noticed."
"What about the flowers on Mr Guteridge's grave?" Callum asked.
"It was my way of linking the forgery to Cobalt Cottage," Norman said. "When I ordered the flowers, I made sure to leave the address with Mr Winnow. Just like my reputation as a carer precedes me, Mr Winnow's reputation proceeds him. I was sure he'd direct you to my door if the money was right."
Two paintings remained to be sealed in their wooden boxes. The Faithful Ornament and its forgery. Holly took the opportunity to study the original first hand. She couldn't imagine purchasing it at such an elevated price. And now she could see the real figures in the background, Holly saw they were non-descript with no real place in the landscape.
Not like Holly or Callum at all.
The forgery was a good copy. If it hadn't been for Norman, Mrs Tweddle's crimes might have remained undetected and Holly liked how she'd appeared in the painting. She had a determined look, something akin to a terrier, she thought.
>
And how many people could claim they had been captured in oil?
"I treated you badly when you came to the cottage," Norman said, "which leads me back to my first point. I'm sorry for that. I had to be sure you'd solved the mystery before I broke my cover. I was alone for so long. I needed to know there was someone on my side. If Mrs Tweddle had suspected me of betraying her, she would have ruined me for good."
"You played your role well," Holly said.
Norman hefted the forged painting into Holly's grasp. "Then let me give you this as a symbol of my gratitude. Not only did you catch a criminal, but you rescued me from her clutches."
"Really?" Holly asked, admiring her painted doppelganger again. "That's so generous and I totally accept."
Callum cleared his throat. "That's police evidence. It can't just be given away."
"I never thought of that," Holly said, lowering the painting. "I suppose you're right."
"You can see the original whenever you want," Callum said, lowering it into the box. "I can open it anytime."
Holly smiled, but no-one was convinced. Slipping her arm through Norman's, she led him out of the cellar to the sound of Callum's hammering.
"What are your plans for the future?" Holly asked.
They stood by the manor's front door, staring into the grounds of Black Rock. It was the dead of night and there was no moon. The stars glittered like sequins on a velvet sky and a breeze rustled the leaves of the surrounding trees.
Norman patted Holly's hand.
"I'm making my statement tomorrow," he said, "and technically, I'm an accomplice so it all depends on whether they bring charges against me. Either way, my time as a carer is over. No-one would employ me now."
"I'll employ you," Holly said.
"That's kind," Norman said, "but you don't need a carer."
There was some debate about that, thought Holly.
Norman had sought her help. Out of everyone in Little Belton, Holly had been chosen by a man who was in an impossible situation. That kind of made her a celebrity and, as she thought about her image in the background of The Faithful Ornament, Holly's ego decided it should be brought to the fore.
They stepped into the crisp night air and listened to the hush of the dark.
Of course, these things weren't cheap and there was still an important point to consider.
"Do you do celebrity discounts?" she asked.
***
Framed is a short story based on some of the characters who appear in Black Rock Manor, the first of the Holly Fleet Mysteries. It is available from Amazon in April 2020. If you like fast paced mysteries with surprising twists and turns, watch out for Black Rock Manor by Shaun Baines, a listed People's Book Prize author.
To view the book, try at your local Amazon store or find it at Amazon UK or Amazon US.