I break in my new desk, writing down everything that’s already happened – the drive here, the ferry, Ellis and Sylvia – and then consult my pre-written notes.

I’ve come with an eight-episode outline. I’ve already written and recorded the first episode, primed and ready to be posted at the end of all this, no matter what I find. All expository, more of a teaser than anything, comprising the information I could find online from forum-scouring and speculation. Of course I can’t be sure what might happen or what I might find or how long any of this might actually take so it’s mostly guesswork, which isn’t ideal, but I wanted to give the series some structure.

Assumptions. There will be paperwork. Honestly, the rest is sort of contingent upon what I find. I need to differentiate rumours and exaggeration from fact. I’m particularly focused on one main piece of evidence – the ‘goodbye’ note allegedly left by Roxy in her car, detailing her intentions (suicide, supposedly). This is what everyone on the forums says is the missing piece; nobody has ever seen it and the consensus is, if someone could find out what she’d actually written, it’d crack everything open. This is my first lead: get the note.

Interviews by the second episode to start the momentum. Then, first break by the third. Connecting the dots, midpoint, fourth episode. New information that changes things. Maybe I’ve been looking at it all wrong. Who knows. More snooping, second break, all comes to a head – finale by the seventh or eighth. Then maybe a reflection episode to tie it all together.

It’s eerie, being alone in the dorms. I decide I ought to start exploring.

Once the heat breaks at seven or so, I let the middle spit of the island lead me wherever it likes, the spine of the vague humanoid that comprises Sandown. Mainly interesting-looking side streets, dappled sunlight like splotches of translucent yellow paint spilled across the sidewalk, poplars swaying above me. The island is picturesque, sure, but stifling. There’s something about its size, its openness, being able to see the conclusion of it from wherever you are, that you’d think would be freeing, or comforting – a three-sixty view of a wide open ocean, of waves growing smaller and smaller until they’re just a suggestion of dark-blue movement against the vastness. Somehow, it’s the opposite. Everything is too small. Too nothing. There’s almost something sad about it. Air here runs thick.

I pass the laundromat, the grocery store. The neighbourhood side streets are lightly populated; I can almost use the tourists’ density as a tool to gauge how near I am to the boardwalk, which is effectively the epicentre of the place, like a beehive’s approach.