There are a few well-knowing glances and cheeky comments from fellow drinkers as Rob leads Melody up the stairs.
“On yersel', Rob!” one man shouts.
“Do Scotland proud!” another jokes from the bar.
There is then a rowdy conglomeration of laughing mixed potently with innuendo.
Melody tries to ignore the disdainful jokes, there's no way she's going to sleep with Rob, but she doesn't have time to correct the onlookers. However, the one thing that does hurt her is a disapproving glance from Morrison behind the bar. It's almost like a parent looking disappointingly at their child. Melody feels a pang of guilt, then remorse that her own father has never been around in her adult life long enough to disapprove.
Rob leads Melody by the hand up the rickety wooden staircase that bends, almost spiralling as it reaches the next floor.
“What is it, Rob?” Melody asks as they walk along the creaking hallway to Melody's room. But at first, Rob does not answer. This silence is unnerving to Melody. She tries to break the ice. “I hope this is just for a talk, because conversation is all you're getting,” she says quietly.
“Ignore them downstairs,” Rob finally says as they reach the door to Melody's room. “I'm not here to make a move on you. But it's clear we need to have a talk. Well... Are you going to open the door?”
Melody considers forcing him to say what he has on his mind before she puts herself in a vulnerable position. I barely know this man, she thinks, tightening her grip around her room key in her hand. He's all smiles and happy-go-lucky, but what if he's more? Something worse that I can't see?
As though sensing Melody's nervousness, Rob gently places a hand on her shoulder. “It's okay, Melody. You've nothing to worry about. I just don't want that lot downstairs listening in to what I have to say. You'll understand soon enough. Please, trust me.”
Melody says nothing, but she nods, puts the key in the door and then invites Rob into her room. She closes the door, but does not lock it. She wants to have a route of escape if needs be.
Once settled in Melody's room, Rob still nestles his drink in one hand, sitting on a wooden chair that looks out across the town and to the sea, while Melody sits on the edge of her bed and looks at her companion.
Melody can feel it in her bones. He knows something, she thinks to herself. But Rob just stares out at the night.
It's up to Melody to break the tension. “Mind telling me why we left the party downstairs?”
“What's your concern with Mr Sanders?” Rob says grimly. The joviality normally present in his voice is all but gone. This is a different Rob.
“I was just asking...”
“Well maybe you shouldn't, Melody.”
Rob gets up and starts pacing the old worn floorboards, rubbing the back of his neck with his right hand, as if trying to remove tension.
“I should have known better,” he says, grumbling out loud to himself.
“What?” Melody asks, but her stomach is full of butterflies. She's beginning to think that he knows her true purpose on the island, but she has no idea what he'll do with that knowledge if he does have it.
“I should have known,” he continues, “that it was more than coincidence that we'd have two outsiders come to the island in such a short space of time.”
“It is a coincidence. I'm writing a book...” Melody sticks to her story, hoping she can get things back on track.
“Maybe..” Rob looks at Melody intently. “You're not here chasing ghosts, then?”
“You think Sanders is dead?” Melody tries to keep her worry from showing, but she was never good at Drama. Science is her realm of expertise, not deception. And yet here she is, trying to deceive an entire island.
“Look, I just don't want you getting caught up in what's going on at Deacon House, Melody. If you're here to find Sanders...”
Melody feigns a laugh. “No, I'm just curious because Rebecca has spoken about him a few times.”
“And you know what curiosity did to the cat?” Rob looks down at Melody with a stark, emotionless expression.
“Rob, what happened to my predecessor? If you know something, out with it!”
Rob sits down on the edge of the bed next to Melody.
“Look, all I know is that Deacon House is bad. Things happen there, and this Mr Sanders might be the latest to have found that out, to his own expense.”
Melody feels her heart racing. Does he mean my father's dead?
“What sort of bad things?” she asks, fighting with her emotions.
Rob stands up and begins pacing again. It's as though his erratic thoughts are controlling his limbs, his movements a potent result of worry and paranoia. The floorboards creak with each step as he moves, the muffled sound of the music downstairs becoming an ominous drone and backdrop to the conversation, rather than the hopeful, life-affirming sound it was before.
“People stay away from Deacon House for good reason, Melody... That family has loss after loss, enough to make most of us certain they're cursed. People on the island are forced to deal with them because they own so much of the land, but if we had our way, we'd ship them off to the mainland and let the cities deal with them and their ways.”
“Rob, listen to me,” Melody says somberly. “What has happened to Mr Sanders?”
“I... I don't know for certain. But look... There are only two ways off this island, by sky and by boat. And the only boat that regularly visits the mainland is The Blue Elm. McCorrie runs that one, an old sea dog if ever there was one, but an honest type. He says he
