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[oom: Shufti and Guppy compare notes on the Teja Murder case. And despair slightly.]

Shufti, having made a brief pit stop home, looks around the bar for one of two people. Not spotting either, she leaves a note for Yrael.

'Yrael,
Apparently you have information on the Teja murder case. If you could fill me in please, that would be great. If you have evidence that can help us get to a conviction, I daresay I could find you a bottle of Atlantean in thanks for your trouble.
Shufti'

She wishes Guppy hadn't hacked the guy off; it's a rather expensive bribe. One she can afford, but that's not the point.

Her badge visible, she sits nearby and keeps looking for people of interest.

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"As the snow is still on the ground," Teja says, "they will not. How long in what way?"

"How long have you had what you showed me." Shufti rephrases.

She looks around for the bolts.

"If they are here, that doesn't make any sense. Why would Urquhart leave them for us to find when he's still free?"

"Some weeks now," Teja says. "Mel swore me to silence, except in case of emergencies. I think my own murder is. As was the need to deal with young Ramon Salazar, when he came to this place from his past."

He leads the way through the forest. "I know the clearing and the pond; the place is dear to me. And from what Yrael told me, he must have put the fear of the big white magical cat into the miserable murderer's cold heart. He cannot be found; he must have gone to ground in some way."

"Is Yrael trustworthy?"

Shufti gets her crossbow out.

"He is," Teja says. "If he says that Urquhart will not attack me again, then he must trust the impression he made upon him, also."

It is something else that Teja suspects Yrael has done, but he would not speak of that.

He reaches the clearing. There has been a smattering of fresh snow in the course of the five days since Teja returned and Yrael found Urquhart, but it's still evident under which tree the snow had been disturbed.

"We must search there," Teja says.

Shufti photographs the area, then crouches, gets a paintbrush out of her pocket, and nudges away the snow.

In the older snow, there are faint traces of blood. And among them are the frozen crossbow bolts that Yrael had upset from their cache among the roots of the tree.

"My Charlie and I were shot from above," Teja says, summarising,"and both an eye witness and Urquhart's scent as Yrael found it, places him in the crook of a tree overlooking the murder scene, during the time we were attacked. There were marks in that tree, showing one climbing it. And here he have the other bolts he made, in the place where Yrael said he found him. And blood, from a presumed fight. Do you think Guppy might prove that this is Urquhart's?"

Shufti bottles some of the bloody snow.

"Probably, if he can get a sample off Urquhart. But that will only prove that Yrael assaulted him."

She chips off a bolt sample to give to Guppy.

"If he can match this to the sticky substance on your body, we'll know they were the weapon. Can't link them to Urquhart though, we've only got Yrael's word against his. If Bar can confirm Urquhart bought the gelatine, then that's enough evidence for arrest I think."

Looking up at him. "Why would Urquhart want you dead?"

"Take a whole bolt," Teja suggests, "and put it in a freezing cabinet. It would be good to preserve the shape, so they may be shown in evidence, if any needs to see it?"

Pause, while he picks one up and twirls it in his fingers. "I know not why," Teja says. "He is a paid murderer, and proud of it; somebody might have paid him for my murder. Some days before the murder, I told him and his -- woman, to take themselves upstairs to a room, when they were about to break the third rule on a couch near the fireplace. I did not tell them my secret, of course; merely pointed out I did not wish for an incident that would disturb me while playing with the cat. They went, with some muttering, but they went. Perhaps the woman has put him up to it, offended at having been spoken to thus?"

"I will, when I have a big enough box." Shufti says. "Otherwise my hands will melt it by the time I get it to the office. Do you know the name of the woman?"

"No," Teja says. "I never spoke with her. But you cannot mistake her -- she has very red hair, very blue eyes, a little cleft in her chin, wears a little less than a respectable woman should wear, by my book, and" -- pause, while Teja blushes a little -- "has a very impressive bust. One cannot help but notice, even if one does not want women in such ways. She is quite short, and I have seen her with Urquhart before that incident."

Shufti nods.

"If you find the name let me know. But it doesn't really sound like motive for murder."

"No," Teja says, "it does not. But we might wish to speak with her; she might know things, as she has been with him more than once, I would suspect."

Shufti nods.

"Does he have other friends that you know of?"

"I saw him with several women," Teja says, "of which some I knew, and some I knew not, but I doubt one may call any of those friends. Otherwise, he seems to have made only enemies."

Shufti nods.

"He works fast."

"I know not if those enemies were what he wished for," Teja says. "But he seemed not to mind, as long as the women kept coming."

"We need to find him."

"Yes," Teja says. "We do!"

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