[T]he huge apathetic tomcat which lived in the office was not disposed to move about much, and preferred to lie stretched out on the warm cover of one of the photocopiers. Three times a day, certain officers — usually Retancourt, Danglard or Mercadet, who was sympathetic to the cat’s sleeping habits — took it in turns to lift this huge animal, weighing eleven kilos, down to its feeding dish, then waited while he ate. That was why there was a chair alongside the dish, so that they could carry on working without getting impatient and forcing the cat to hurry up.This arrangement was organised near the room with the drinks dispenser and it often happened that men, women and office pet all foregathered round the water cooler. Having been told about this unorthodox behaviour, Divisionnaire Brézillon had sent an official note requesting the immediate removal of the cat. Before his quarterly inspection — the function of which was simply to get up everyone’s nose, since he could hardly complain about the squad’s excellent results — there was a rapid tidying up operation. They had to sweep out of sight the cushions Mercadet slept on, Voisenet’s ichthyological journals, Danglard’s wine bottles and Greek dictionaries, Noël’s pornographic magazines, Froissy’s food caches, the cat’s litter and dish, Kernorkian’s aromatherapy oils, Maurel’s Walkman, Retancourt’s cigarettes, until the office looked extremely operational and totally unsuited to everyday life.
During such purges, the only problem was the cat, which miaowed terribly if shut in a cupboard. So someone would carry it out to the courtyard at the back and wait in a car until Brézillon departed. Adamsberg had refused to get rid of the two gigantic antlers in his office, saying that they were key evidence in an investigation. With the passage of time — since the squad had now been in these offices for three years — the camouflage operation had become longer and more difficult.
(An Uncertain Place)
Best of the Transparent Hummingbird