Staring at the painting she sighed, what she wouldn’t give to paint like that, be in that world, alas Sue just looked at it contentedly.

Sue was currently doing her degree in art at Cardiff University, and she was mesmerized at this moment by a new painting in the art gallery, it was about A4 size in a gold-coloured gilded frame and the picture was of a man with a funny little moustache, receding hairline, and a straight posture. It felt like he was staring right at you; and yet it didn’t creep her out, it actually made her feel calm as he looked like her grandfather – without the moustache. The painting was in the main gallery with all the other paintings and yet had no sign next to it as to who painted it, she looked around for an attendant and found one in an adjacent gallery.

‘Hi, I was wondering whether you could help me please?’

‘I can try’ said the girl who looked a good ten years her junior, with big brown eyes and long black hair, it made her stand out more than some of the paintings.

‘The portrait of the gentleman in the other room with the funny moustache and walking stick, it doesn’t say who painted him, any ideas?’

‘No sorry, he is a recent purchase from a local donator, they are still trying to find out, but I’m sure when they have the information it will be put next to the painting’, ‘I find him quite creepy personally’.

‘I actually find him peaceful to look at’, ‘but thanks anyway’. Smiling at the girl Sue wandered off toward the Rubens and Monets.

The next day she found the painting was playing on her mind, she wondered why of all paintings this was affecting her so much, she tried to put it to the back of her mind and get on with her day. A week went by, and the painting was still nagging her, like a bad dream that just won’t shift. By the time she returned to the museum there was a note by it, it said the name of the painter, who was in the painting, and a note of the history of it. It read;

Painter: Otto van Clere in oil on canvas, 1902

The sitter was a man called Samuel Anderson, Sue shivered at this, it was her surname, but there was more. This painting was painted on the eve of Anderson’s death, that was it, nothing more. Sue quickly got out a web search for Samuel Anderson 1902 and it turned out he was hung for murder because he beat a servant to death with a walking stick. Then she noticed the original painting differed from the one in her hand, in the web image she saw he was holding a thin long walking stick with a rose carved on top, whereas in the one in the gallery, the walking stick was different, it was slightly bent out of shape with a knobbly top, looking at the painting closely she thought it looked more like the end of a bone.