Jesus. "Am I free to leave?" he says.

"For now."

Great!

"Until we've concluded our investigation into your-- filth."

"Okay." He starts walking away quickly. "Thanks for the information." And blatant editorializing but he should get away from the cop as soon as possible. When he gets to the end of the block he ducks into an alley behind a bar and leans against the wall.

He's going to have to start contacting people as soon as possible. But for now he's just going to stare into the bricks of the alley.

It's there that he remembers that yesterday, Jing Yi was the best-paying customer at his shop.

Meanwhile--

Terrence wants to interrogate Sal and Inaaya.

Sal's interrogated him enough times, turnabout is probably fair play.

Inaaya has barely even interrogated him at all but she was admittedly super weird last time they talked. Fair enough.

Sal glances over to look at the content of Terrence's open notebook! Specifically, the yellow signs doodled in the margins.

Sal is being haunted. Maybe they should stop meeting at Terrence's place so often.

The notebook is definitely in plain view, Terrence has not cleaned up - anyhow, well, he did start doing some dishes he found when he got distracted while looking for his stash of blank notebooks, and - well, you know it goes.

Anyhow, Terrence takes no notice of it and puts on some tea. "Sal! Inaaya! Welcome in. How goes the search?"

"Not very straightforwardly, as per usual."

It'd be going better if William weren't determined to keep the name of his whistle-having friend a secret. "It's going alright! Apparently Roby visited another small town which had some weird murders, name of Clare Melford, in Suffolk. What did you want to ask us about?"

"Wait, Clare Melford? You're sure?"

"...yes. Why, what's in Clare Melford?"

"Splendid synchronicity," he mumbles. Then, in a normal tone:"Oh, I was just reading a book written by our elusive Ben Best. He mentioned Clare Melford as the historical site of worship of some ancient deity of Brittany. I'm told he had some fascinations with possible modern worship of ancient deities as well, though I'm not sure this one has any modern following - in any case I only just heard the name of the place today."

"Huh. Which deity?" She's not just stalling to try and avoid the interrogation to follow but she's definitely nonzero doing that.

"Shub-Niggurath. ... Not sure if I'm pronouncing that right."

....the one Valentine Donovan apparently talked about. Good to know but also she kind of hates it. "I wouldn't know."

"The same one Donovan mentioned - I don't know if there's anything there or if she just happened to know the name, but if Roby visited and there were other - unusual events - there ... Well, it might be worth looking into." He shrugs and pours some tea. "Anyhow. Listen, what I wanted to ask about - Inaaya, you have a... a keen interest in the architecture of the fantastical."

Which of Inaaya's many things is that supposed to be??

The Dreamlands, mostly. "Yes," she agrees.

"You don't... strike me... as the kind of person who's a student of architecture Not to say you couldn't be, but from what I know of you, I just don't see how you'd have the time."

There are several different things he could be subtexting about and Inaaya has no idea which thing it is.

"Isn't it possible we've been discussing it in our free time?" asks the arguable student of architecture, uncertain if Inaaya wants some cover here. "There is some overlap with mathematics."

"You're right, I'm not in school, I wouldn't have time and even if I did that's not how I'd spend it," she agrees. "And I spend most of my time on maths and astronomy, but I'll read about almost anything."