Some More of God’s Greatest Mistakes

We had our tea in the kitchen, out of a sparkling white china tea set with a matching kettle that looked a bit out of place on the faded linoleum of the kitchen table which looked about 30 years old at a minimum.  As she served tea Gran told us exactly what she thought of detective agencies, how they were disreputable, how no decent person would work at one, even as a secretary, and how private investigators were just peeping toms for hire by unhappily married rich people.  I didn’t take this talk too seriously, though, as I was starting to get a sense of the Personality in whose presence I found myself.

“I agree, actually.”  I said, in the spirit of investigation.

“Do you, now?”  She looked at me, reminding me once again of a spear point.

“Well, yes.”  I had said it in the hopes of moving the conversation along, and now I had to come up with some sort of follow through.  What I managed surprised me no less than anyone.  “Private Investigation is a cesspool.  Our agency barely gets by investigating insurance fraud, or divorces like you mentioned.  The lost cat I found was probably the only time I’ve felt I could hold my head up, and he was hiding under a rhodedendron.  That’s exactly why we need a time traveller.  Not for help in catching cheating spouses- there’s really not much trick to that.  We need a time traveller to attract a whole new kind of business.  We need a time traveller so that we can help people find out what happened to their missing children 20 years ago, or solve murders that the police have given up all hope on.”

“The union doesn’t allow its members to do police work.  Do you really want to bring down the TTJU on us?  Police departments certainly haven’t been brave enough to risk employing time travellers without permission.”

“Well, yes, that’s exactly why it has to be done with a private investigator.”  My mind went full speed, trying to come up with something, anything.  “It would be- you would be employed as a researcher, and our clients might be attracted by the idea that we had a time traveller unofficially on the payroll, but it would be up to us to find the evidence in the present so as to make the whole thing deniable.  That way we could have your wisdom and judgement in pointing us towards the right evidence, but it would be the investigators who had to find the traces in the present moment that would back up whatever it was your research pointed at.”

She looked at me again, and I was sure she’d seen right through me.  But all she said was “Very well, as long as time travel isn’t officially my job description I suppose the TTJU won’t have anything to fuss over.”

Then we began the considerably longer process of negotiating over her salary.