The 'Sound' of the Rainbow (standard:mystery, 1967 words)
Author: KShaw	Updated: Aug 19 2005	Views/Reads: 3669/2498	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
I began it as an investigation, talking to the men who worked with him, drank with him, even those, who, for one reason or another, disliked him, making notes, hoping to get a fix on the way it happened.

The ‘Sound' of a Rainbow 

Copyright: KShaw2001 

Chapter 1: Going Home 

I began it as an investigation, talking to the men who worked with him,
drank with him, even those, who, for one reason or another, disliked 
him, making notes, hoping to get a fix on the way it happened. 

The phone call came in the earliest hour of Friday morning. The gravel
tones of the caller were unmistakable. “Frank's gone...” is all I 
remember ‘Snowy' McCloud saying. I jumped out of bed, packed a travel 
bag, and drove through the night to the seaport of Oban, a thriving 
fishing community on the west coast of Scotland. 

Daybreak was brimming over the hills as I pulled into the car park at
the ferry terminal. I checked my watch, rolled down the window and felt 
the bitter icy chill blow in off the rough waters. The pungency of 
decaying fish was overwhelming. I had two hours to wait before the 
first departure to Craignure. I reached over the seat for my black 
overcoat, stepped out of the car, and headed toward the booking office. 
The cold bit hard and I pulled the collar of my overcoat up around my 
ears and over my mouth, each breath evaporating in a white mist. The 
terminal building looked the same as I recalled. Nothing had changed. 
It required restoration work years back, now it needs demolishing. A 
sign hanging on the inside of the door read ‘Closed', but the hours of 
opening, printed in black lettering on the iron bar protected glass 
window clearly stated the opening hours to be from five a.m. I checked 
my watch, five twenty. The lights were on so I pushed the door. It 
jarred open, adding more scrapes to the already damaged floor.  Two of 
the three wooden benches, all of them carved with abusive graffiti, 
were broken. The sturdiest of them covered with greasy fish and chip 
wrappers and several old newspapers. The floor was no better, littered 
with cigarette stubs, crushed beer cans, and a used condom. There was a 
smell of piss in the air. 

The sudden release of a metallic window shutter crashing upwards,
clattering against a glass partition made me jump. A fat woman walked 
to the back of the office and sat on a stool, then fingered through the 
pages of a magazine while eating a slice of butter-slapped toast. She 
didn't offer any kind of welcome, or service, and remained totally 
involved in thumbing the pages. I waited, patiently. I waited longer. 
Butter was drooling down her chin. I coughed, politely. She looked up 
and stared at me. It was the questionable stare of a prison guard 
finding a file in a birthday cake.  Her ‘just-got-out-of-bed' hairdo, 
perhaps once fashionable, and her heavy dark rimmed glasses gave her a 
very stern and unfriendly look. She wore a navy blue jumper, salted 
with dandruff, and one sleeve had a smear of butter melting on the 
cuff. Deep furrows on her forehead gave me pause to think, but I smiled 
anyway. It was wasted. She managed to complete the entire transaction 
without saying a word. I took the ticket, thrown my way under the glass 
partition, said thank you, and looked round for a vending machine. It 
stood where it had always stood, next to an overflowing garbage can, 
bent and buckled, and looking unserviceable. I walked over, searching 
my pocket for change. Coffee cost one pound and fifty pence. I had two 
pound coins in my hand, but observed a tiny notice saying ‘change 
given'. I inserted the two coins and pushed the appropriate button. A 
plastic cup slipped into place and filled with coffee.  I waited 
longer, hoping my fifty pence change would drop out. It didn't. I hit 
the ‘return coin' button. Nothing happened. I slapped the side of the 
vending machine. Still nothing. I slapped it again, only to hear the 
tapping of a pencil on the window partition behind me. The fat woman 
was pointing to a sign above the machine referring to the abuse of 
vending machines. Reluctantly, and fearing for my life, I stepped back 
to the window to inform her about my change problem. She was indignant. 


“There's a phone number on the side of the machine. Call them. That
machine is not our property. It is for the customer's convenience,” she 
said, lighting a cigarette and blowing the smoke in my direction. 
Walking back to the car, with the nip-frost again biting my ears, I 
heard a huge bang, sounding like a thump of fist on a thin metal. 
‘Bitch,' I thought. 



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