(Wednesday evening, just after 1900.  See the RRU planning thread for more information!)

"Well, of course drinking beers isn't professional," Jonas remarked amusedly, positioning the lip of the bottle cap against the edge of his desk.  Cracking a beer without using a designated bottle opener took skill, but twelve years in Muggle life had luckily given him plenty of time to practice.

He opened one, passed it across the desk, and then cracked open another, leaning back in his chair as he took a sip.  Taking his usual position behind the desk was more than just force of habit; it let him keep an eye on the security monitor, which would show if anyone approached the front door that led to his upper-level office.  If magic started getting slung about, all of his Muggle security systems would likely fritz out again, but even that had its advantages.  When all of his technology suddenly stopped working, at least he knew that there were spells being cast.

"That's the point though, innit?" he asked cheerfully, stretching his bad knee out under the desk as he leaned back in his chair.  "This isn't professional at all - just a few blokes hanging about and having a beer.  We can hardly help what the conversation turns to, can we?  And besides, it's been a long week."

The private investigator didn't bother to elaborate as to why it had already been a long week.  He had no idea how quickly certain information would get about, but per Radley's strong 'suggestion,' he wasn't about to volunteer anything unless  someone asked directly.  After the past few days, he felt more tired than he probably ought to be.  It had been all that he could do to arrange the front, official room of his office to allow for visitors.  In addition to the normal two chairs that accompanied his desk, he'd dragged in another pair more from the kitchen, their mismatched floral cushions hinting that they'd been yanked out of their normal environment.  Jonas would be damned if he spent any time trying to find a fifth - after his participation in the Great Cream Soda Uprising two weeks prior, Adon had bloody well earned the right to stand when he came over.

Appearances or not, though, there wasn't any point in wasting time before getting down to business.  The private investigator kept his hand loosely around the neck of the bottle, keeping one eye on the video monitor as he began to speak.

"So Tawse hasn't been officially spotted since the twelfth of January." Jonas didn't bother to flip through his usual notebook; he could rattle off these facts from memory.  "He had the kid with him then, but there's been neither hide nor hair seen of either of 'em since then.  As far as the Aurors know, he hasn't come by the Black Chimaera, hasn't been seen with any known acquaintances, hasn't even tried to visit his mother - although," he added with a touch of dry humor, pausing for a swallow of beer, "if I tried to bring a house down on top of me mum, the Lord only knows I'd give it a month or three before striking up a conversation, too."

"Level Two are putting as many resources as they can into the hunt, but they've turned up nothing obvious so far.  Which unfortunately leaves us without an obvious place to start."  He paused, letting his gaze slide carefully over the others present.  "Unless one of you lot has managed to happen upon something?"

Aberdeen, who had declined a drink (and had indeed been keeping off the alcohol of late, officially so that she didn't risk impairing her judgement, unofficially because she worried about a slippery slope given her emotional state these days, even if she did manage to hide how she felt for the most part), leaned back in the kitchen chair she occupied, glancing to the security camera every now and then. She would've liked to put up protective charms, but that would have rendered the muggle security system useless, so she contented herself with just being a little more twitchy than usual.

'I've... started remembering a bit about the night that... You know.' Aberdeen coughed awkwardly. This was the problem with mixing business with her personal life; it was difficult to remain emotionally dettached. It bothered her; she worried it was a sign of weakness. So she tried to keep her tone brisk as she pushed on,  'I've started remembering what the abductor looks like. The person who Obliviated Luke and me.' She pulled a grimace. 'It wasn't Tawse. It was a woman. Blonde hair-- and fairly young, I think. No one I know, though. I mean, I might recognise her if I saw her, maybe, but...' There was something frustrated in the way Aberdeen pushed her long hair out of her face, but other than that, she managed to keep her expression fairly neutral.

'About the mother,' she interrupted herself abruptly, looking back to Trevelyan. Robin's grandmother, she thought, with a twinge of some emotion she couldn't quite identify. 'Where is she now? Might she be willing to talk to us? ...Although, come to that, would Raynor be willing to let us?' she added as the thought occurred to her, more as a rhetorical question than one to which she actually expected the private investigator to have an answer handy.

Tulojow sat in a chair closest to the door.  She'd heard of the meeting through the grapevine and had felt obligated to attend and offer her assistance in any way she could, but in the event of a sudden medical emergency at Hogwarts, Tulojow had to be prepared to make a hasty retreat.

She'd never been one to give protocol much credence, much to the dismay of the Ministry so she gave the clandestine nature of their meeting little second thought.  Indeed - Tamis Raynor would probably expect it of the American-born witch by now.  Level two been all too eager to use her shattered knee as a reason to force her into retirement.  Since leaving the force, Tulojow had been learning to settle herself to the more sedentary and casual life of a school nurse.  But, it did leave her restless. 

"It has been a long month," Tulojow added as she sipped her own beer.  "I'm not sure how likely it is for that trend to change."  Tulojow had just turned ten when, those many years ago, Dumbledore had defeated Grindelwald.  Since then, as an Auror and a member of the Order of the Phoenix, she'd fought against the Death Eaters during two separate attempts to gain control.  With luck, this new rising threat would be a simple blip in this era of relative peace.  But, in case it wasn't, Tulojow had no intentions of simply sitting on the sidelines. 

This whole going underground was a bit too familiar for comfort, though.  But, unlike the last time, an innocent civilian had been dragged into the mess.  There was no question they needed to get the poor kid back.  On the run and in hiding was no childhood.  "Tawse's nephew disappeared from school towards the end of January and then returned on the first.  I still haven't gotten the full explanation but I don't think it's connected.  I haven't heard anything that suggests the boy visited his uncle." 

"Are you acquainted with any muggle criminal sketch artists?"  Tulojow asked Jonas after hearing Aberdeen had started remembering the appearance of her attacker.  "If it's someone acquainted with Tawse, Xavier might recognize her." 

Jonas arched an eyebrow, surprise showing on his features as he studied Spencer for a moment.  Unofficial meeting or not, these were the sort of details that were relevant to the investigation.  Picking up a pen, he pulled open his desk drawer and dug through it for a notebook. 

Blonde...young...  It was impossible to ignore the unsettling feeling that crept over him as he flipped to a blank page.  He knew of at least one witch who frequented the Black Chimaera and matched that description, although the hair color was a recent alteration.  Lexus had been working for him at the time that Robin was kidnapped, but he hadn't seen the Canadian werewolf between Christmas and the second of January.  He knew that she was impressionable, knew that she spent too much time in Knockturn Alley.  It unfortunately wasn't out of the realm of imagination that his former assistant could have gotten roped into something so untoward.

"Don't remember anything else offhand, do you?" he asked mildly, as he scribbled the scant details down.  "Height, which wand hand she used, her voice?"  Lex stood nearly as tall as he did, and her flat vowels betrayed her North American origins; either could easily hint at her identity.  "Did she sound British?  Any accent you could place?"

"Are you acquainted with any muggle criminal sketch artists?"

"There's a thought," Jonas said musingly, tapping his pen absently against the paper.  The suggestion was a good one, though clearly not the way that MLE normally operated.  He hadn't pegged Nagde as being aware of Muggle investigative techniques, but it made sense considering her reputation.  "Not in London, but I know a bloke down in Exeter who used to be a detective inspector.  He's still got plenty of connections, and sometimes I can talk him into letting me use 'em." 

It was worth a try, although he had a suspicion he may have used up his share of recent favors.  Though he had yet to see the report that he'd asked his uncle to run on Tait Aldridge's Auror badge, the older man had left a cryptic message on his office line about how they needed to 'talk' sometime soon.

"It might be worth talking to the kid about Tawse anyhow, too," he suggested, forehead creasing as he glanced back at Tulojow.  "You go on the run, you're going to start using the advantages you've got, and it's got to be worse if he's keeping the toddler with 'im.  Reckon he might be hunkering down someplace that he feels comfortable.  If his nephew knows him at all, we could use 'im to start building a profile - places that his uncle has mentioned going, family holidays, that sort of thing."

He paused, his attention shifting back to Spencer as she inquired after Anna Tawse and the possibility of Raynor giving permission to speak with the older woman. 

"Tam might allow it," he said thoughtfully.  She'd have to if he twisted her arm enough, although it was a bit early to start playing that card.  "I can always ask.  But as far as I know, the Aurors have been keeping her under lock and key in case her son decides to take another swipe at her."  That was something to add to his mental profile of Tawse, too - the big man had to be feeling stabbed in the back by his mother.  For someone as social as the former bartender had struck him, that had to cut.  Either he'd strike out totally on his own or he'd be looking for others to trust to make up for the betrayal.

Kabir Ahmed seldom drank anything alcoholic, but he did enjoy a good cup of coffee. If it kept him awake…well, that sometimes shook things loose that had been percolating in his subconscious. In this particular case so far he had very little information to be percolating, but it had been a long week…especially after that disastrous dinner at Murray Manor…and Ahmed was exhausted

Taking a sip from his thermos, he paused at the front door of Trevelyan Investigations and warily examined the keypad. Unlike many British wizards, he had often worked with his counterparts in Muggle law enforcement, and so such contraptions were not unfamiliar to him.

Still…it had happened to him more than once that someone gave him the wrong code. Perhaps it was his own fault…he might have entered a couple of numbers reversed. Or perhaps there was a system malfunction; but for whatever reason Ahmed would suddenly find himself standing outside some facility, red lights flashing and alarm bells ringing.

Keeping that possibility in mind tonight he was wearing Western dress. After all if anything went wrong it would not do at all for a man in a turban to be the one who set off  the alarms. The way things were these days he would probably be hauled off to Scotland Yard before he had a chance to explain himself. Then the Department for Muggle-worthy excuses would be kept busy for days on end; and after all that took place when Ahmed first arrived in London, he was still not the most popular man with that department…

So…taking a deep breath, he entered the sequence of numbers he’d been given. No red lights, no loud bells, no wailing klaxons…Instead a green light came on, and there was a small buzzing noise. Breathing a sigh of relief, Ahmed pushed on the door, and sure enough it admitted him.  He heard it click behind him, but he tried it once, just to be sure. It was locked.

Climbing the stairs, he found the room where the meeting was happening.

“Hello, Deen. Tulo! Good to see you.”

He held out his hand to the red-haired chap behind the desk. “Mr. Trevelyan, I am Kabir Ahmed. It is a pleasure finally to meet you.”

Adon ambled up the familiar steps to Jonas' office and ersatz abode and with equal familiarity, tapped the security code into the raised keypad, which he had now learned to successfully operate. As was also customary, he winked cheekily at the surveillance camera.

Swinging the door wide, he strode in, spring in his step.

"Jonas, I'm home! Brought the file for yo--oh," Adon said, making a show of pausing, deer-like, in the middle of the room as he surveyed the others with wide eyes. "People."

He winked at Aberdeen.

Adon was anything but surprised. Only people with tourette's syndrome emphasised that many words in one sentence and Jonas had said very clearly: "Yeh, mate. Drop the papers by. At me office. At eight o'clock."

Okay. So here he was. Aberdeen hadn't officially asked for his help. She hadn't actually unofficially asked for it either. It was okay, though, because Adon was going to give the help anyhow. Adon didn't need invitations. That was what made him so nice.

"So what's going on, Tracy?" he asked, sidling up to the desk and sitting on the edge of it and helping himself to a beer, without invitation. "Alcoholic work meeting. Sounds nice."

Aberdeen was quietly pondering the input from Nagde and Trevelyan when the door opened to admit Colonel Kabir. 'Evening, Colonel,' she replied to him with her second warm smile of the evening. It was comforting to have another familiar face about. The first warm smile had gone to Tulojow Nagde; Aberdeen was so glad Kabir had thought to suggest bringing her into the investigation. Aberdeen's and Nagde's time at Level Two hadn't overlapped by much, but Aberdeen made no secret of her admiration and respect for the retired Auror. (Trevelyan had received a polite smile and nod when Aberdeen had first arrived. He wasn't quite into 'warm smile' territory with her yet.)

Aberdeen had started to reprise the beginning of the meeting's discussion to Kabir, but stopped, surprised, when the door opened again. They hadn't been expecting anyone else, had they?

Glancing from Adon to Trevelyan, Aberdeen raised her eyebrows. They hadn't been expecting anyone else, perhaps. But it seemed that he had.

'You invited my ex to the shindig, Detective?' Aberdeen quipped, her face still a carefully neutral expression. Turning to Nagde, she explained, 'Dinnae ken if you know, Adon here used to be my partner back on Level Two. He went off with Mr Trevelyan here after I fell off the wagon.' Crossing her arms, she regarded her former partner with a more sincere expression. 'Good to see you, Adon. We're, ah... having a former Auror convention. And the subject of Robin might possibly have cropped up. You know, as it does.' Since Trevelyan had taken the trouble to get Adon here, hiding anything from him at this point seemed pointless.

'So,' she said, a slightly authoritative air to her voice. 'Tawse is still at large. He has two relatives we might be able to get access to. His mother-- in protective custody or the like?' She glanced at Trevelyan questioningly. 'And a nephew, at Hogwarts. Are you... maybe in a position to be able to talk to him?' she asked Nagde tentatively. A presence at Hogwarts suddenly felt more valuable now that she knew Tawse had a nephew there. 'And, we know he has an accomplice. Young blonde woman. She's the one who... Well. You know.' Remembering Trevelyan's specific questions about the woman, she added, 'She was quite short, I think. I... I don't remember an accent,' she told Trevelyan apologetically. 'I mean, I think she was British, but I don't know if I can be sure. But Madam Nagde's sketch artist idea... Given time I might be able to remember enough of what she looks like to give a decent description, so that may well be worth looking into...'

Aberdeen leaned back in her seat, rubbing at her forehead with her fingertips as though trying to smooth out her thoughts. 'Have I missed anything out?'

"Surprised you don't use one of those mini cassette recorders," Tulojow offered with a slight smirk as Jonas fished in his desk for a notebook.  Perhaps that statement, even in jest, dated her a bit too much. 

"It'd definitely be worth trying.  Maybe, even trying to sketch the woman yourself might help."  Tulojow offered in Aberdeen's direction before nodding towards Jonas.  There was no denying Tulojow usually approached criminal investigation with the same eclectic perspective as healing: go with whatever worked.  But, she didn't exactly see this as strictly utilizing a muggle crime fighting strategy.  This was much more about accessing the hidden parts of the brain.  Even outside of law enforcement, art and the physical process of creating it was frequently used to bypass the conscious thought process.  That was one of the many reasons drawing was so frequently used with children during interrogation.  It helped access memories that fear might be blocking. 

At this point, it was mere speculation whether or not doing so would also help access memories blocked by a memory charm.  "I know a couple artists back in the States if your bloke down in Exeter doesn't pan out.  None of them are criminal sketch artists by profession but I'm sure they'd do in pinch."  Bloke.  It was one of those amusing, typically British terms.  "Seeing a visual of what you remember of this woman will exercise different areas of the brain.  It very well might help break through more of the memory charm.  Hypnosis might be beneficial as well." 

Glancing up, Tulojow offered Kabir a smile as the man greeted her.  "Do we ever tire of meeting under unofficial and slightly questionable circumstances?"  She extended the warm smile to Adon as he joined the fray, turning back to Aberdeen.  "You were partners?  I did not know that.  I don't know as much Eleor gossip as I did back when they were three feet tall." 

Tulojow turned back to the issue at hand and nodded.  "I'll see what I can get out of Tawse Junior," she offered.  Luckily (or, perhaps, unluckily), she and Xavier Tawse had crossed paths before.  She got the sense that she had some level of respect from the young man.  It was impossible to tell whether that'd be enough - or even if the young man had any information of value to them. 

Jonas flashed the Healer a crooked grin as he flipped to a fresh page in the notebook.  "Can't be certain that a tape recorder's always going to work if there's magic about, can you?" he asked cheerfully, looking amused at the suggestion.  "You do it enough, you get alright at recalling things on your own, anyhow.  Writing it down's mostly just another way to help you remember."

Movement on the screen caught his eye, as first Kabir and then Adon arrived in quick succession.  The red-haired man set his beer down on the desk and levered himself awkwardly to his feet to shake Kabir's hand, flashing a warm, grateful smile in the Israeli Auror's direction.

"Yeah, well, you know how he gets," he informed Spencer nicely, swatting in Adon's general direction as the younger man helped himself to a beer without asking.  Carefully, Jonas lowered himself back into his chair, stretching out his leg again under the desk.  "If I hadn't asked him along, I would've ended up having to chase him off the front pavement in the morning.  Or ended up hexed, or something equally unhelpful."

He leaned back in the chair, listening pensively as Spencer recapped the discussion so far.  A slight twinge of relief accompanied her elaborated description - Lexus might be blonde, but she certainly wasn't short - and he jotted the new details down.

"Yeah, his mum's still in protective custody.  That all gives us a place to start," he remarked absently as he scribbled down notes, nodding to the two women.  "Nagde follows up with Tawse's nephew at Hogwarts, and we see if we can't find Spencer a sketch artist so that we can start looking for this blonde woman."

He paused thoughtfully for a moment, and then glanced at Adon.  "Houdini, you think your brother might be willing to help us out at all?" he inquired carefully.  He didn't mean to put the younger man on the spot and he knew that Dreogan's assistance was a bit of a sore point.  Between his reaction to their lunch the other week and the uncertainty of what would happen if he tried to scry, Jonas wasn't sure that the mage would be willing to help, but Dreogan had already managed to find one recently missing person.  "I know he's got plenty going on with work and Akiva, and I'd hate to put any more on his plate if you don't think he can manage it," he added, hedging his question.

Aberdeen was nodding thoughtfully, mulling over, among other things, Nagde's suggestion that she try drawing the perpetrator herself. The idea of Aberdeen herself attempting to draw anything was laughable, not that the other witch would know that, but there was the benefit of being married to a Graphic Design major. At Trevelyan's reiteration of enlisting a sketch artist, Aberdeen chipped in, 'And Luke's the artistic type. I can't draw for toffee, but he might be able to get something down while we're waiting to get in touch with a professional. Hell, might even help jog his memory too.'

Luke had been having a harder time of the Memory Charm than her, she was certain of it. They had never said as much out loud, but it was clear that though both of them were through all their efforts starting to claw back faint fragments of memory, Luke found himself more stuck in the Oblivation. Aberdeen often found herself wondering if it was more difficult for him because he was a muggle. Aberdeen was a witch through and through, but spells like the Memory Charm were sometimes enough to make her wish that magic simply didn't exist at all.

Her train of thought deviated from sketch artists and memories though, when Trevelyan brought up the topic of Dreogan Eleor. He didn't out and out specify scrying, but it was pretty obvious to anyone who knew that Dreogan was a Seer what the detective was getting at. 'Is that safe?' Aberdeen blurted out before Adon had the chance to answer. 'I don't know all the ins and outs of what's been happening with Dreogan lately, but... Isn't that the kind of thing that might put him at risk?' She knew there was something vaguely hypocritical about that statement, but in Aberdeen's mind, the dangers she and the rest of the people assembled in Trevelyan's office might potentially be subjecting themselves to by investigating Robin's abduction were an entirely different matter than if the elder Eleor brother got involved. Everyone in this room, after all, either was or had been an Auror.

'You invited my ex to the shindig, Detective? Dinnae ken if you know, Adon here used to be my partner back on Level Two. He went off with Mr Trevelyan here after I fell off the wagon.'

"Left me broken-hearted and alone, Spence. Jonas here was obliging enough to pick up the pieces." Adon smiled, the truth exaggerated to satire. "Don't tell Jonas this, of course," Adon said, sotto-voce, "but he's just the Other Woman." Adon glanced over and winked cheekily at Jonas.  Jonas did know how he got. Which he appreciated.

His eyebrows raised in feigned surprise at the mention of Robin. "You don't say," he muttered lowly before being greeted by Tulo.

"Well, Tulo," Adon said with a cheeky grin, "when I was three feet tall, I could get into quite a few more tight places." Literally. He'd managed figuratively quite well, recently.

Adon nodded at mentions of sketch artists, mini cassette recorders, talking to the young cousin -- but paused when his brother was mentioned. "I'm sure he'd be happy to help. . ." he began cautiously before adding, with a shamed expression -- this felt like betrayal -- "but I'm not certain he should." He wet his lip before adding, "he's getting back on his feet again, and. . ." he looked at Deen with a lingering glance. She got his ways, too. And her exact words resonated with his thoughts. "it's not safe. At least I don't think it is. But he'd do it." He felt the need to impress strongly to Jonas this last point. "He'd be -- he'd be happy to help. But I think he'd be even more annoyingly persistent about this than I."

Which was, by Adon's looks, a warning and request not to ask it of Dreogan. Dreogan could never say no. Not to a missing person's request. And especially a missing child.

Adon looked at the group: two Muggleborns who had been persecuted in the past over blood purity issues, a hippie-American Auror, and a foreign diplomat with a deathwish hanging over his head.

Adon could play, if only for a couple of days, the role of "good, pureblooded boy." He was at least two of those. "I can talk to Anna. That is," he said, glancing to Jonas, "she may talk to me. I'll check with Raynor, at any rate." Prior flirting and buttering-up with Tawse might have paid off, after all. "I'm part Grimm. That's got a good family name, with friendly connections to the Tawses. At least I presume. We all kind of inbreed."