The 'Sound' of the Rainbow (Chapter 2) (standard:mystery, 1100 words)
Author: KShaw	Added: Sep 10 2005	Views/Reads: 3198/2231	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Back on the island I look up some old friends, still hopeful that someone will have the clue to me learning more about Frank's disappearance.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story



I bid Aunt Maggie goodbye, hunger satisfied, and went off to visit all
Frank's usual haunts, speaking to landlords, café proprietors, hotel 
owners, but all said the same thing; a month ago he came by asking for 
his paintings, saying he wasn't going to sell any more work. 

By evening, I hadn't found one painting or any clue as to where they
might be. 

Ferguson's trawler was first to come round the point. I stood among the
crab pots on the quayside ready to greet him, hoping he could tell me 
something, anything. I was assuming, hoping in fact, that Frank had 
taken the paintings to Tiree, where he'd found solace after Rachel's 
death. There being the place they lived together. If right then Fergie 
would have knowledge of this, living on Tiree himself. Since Rachel's 
death Frank seldom went back to Tiree, preferring to hold up at my 
cottage in Nook, nipping on a good malt whisky, and trying not to think 
too much. 

Angus Maxwell Ferguson, held up his arm in salute. I returned the
gesture.  Fergie, as he likened to be called, was not returning home to 
a wife. A result of negligence in his personal cleanliness some said, 
choosing a beer over a bath, but even so he's a popular figure in the 
town. A portly, strong man, Fergie is free of worldly ambition. His 
thin, hawk-like nose, thin mouth, and suede coloured teeth say a lot 
about his nature. Most noticeable, after some year's absence, was how 
the shock of his once brown hair had fast silvered. 

Trawling is hard man's profession, but Fergie is one always with a ready
and infectious laugh has absolutely no sensitivity, but a memory that 
doesn't forget old friends. When asked if he knew the whereabouts of 
Frank, or any of his paintings, sorrow happened on his face. He shook 
his head. ‘Frank's a gonna, laddie, you'll noo find him, he's with his 
missie, and why noot, it's better the way it is.” There was little 
point in further discussion. I wasn't ready to accept that Frank was 
gone. 


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