The Quantum Curators and the Missing Codex (The Quantum Curators, #3)

by Eva St. John

Then later, after ten too many drinks, he would start a fight with the next-door neighbour about the correct way to aerate a garden pond.

Sounds familiar

I wanted to be able to sit there and nod sagely, whilst laughing in the face of danger, before manfully striding out of the office doing my finest Butch Cassidy impersonation. Instead, I appeared to be channelling Benny Hill at a works tribunal.