The Better Mousetrap Read Online Free PDF

blue-black holes. He looked down at his shoes, and noticed that they were splashed with whatever the noxious stuff was that they processed at the Eccleshaw plant. Oh well, he thought. If it burns holes in the carpet, I don’t suppose anybody’ll notice.
    ‘Is that your dog?’
    Inside Frank something growled, but he was a civilised human being, so he nodded. ‘I’d like a word with Mr Tanner, please, if he’s free,’ he said, as pleasantly as he could. The beautiful girl looked at him, and under his clothes he fancied he could feel little dotted lines, like the ones you see drawn on pictures of cows in butchers’ shops, to tell you the names of the various cuts and joints.
    ‘Carpenter, did you say your name was?’
    ‘That’s right. Frank Carpenter.’
    Was it possible to read someone’s DNA with the naked eye?
    The girl looked as though she was giving it her best shot. ‘I’ll see if he’s available,’ she said, and picked up a phone. Into it she recited his name. There was a long, quiet interval; then she put the phone back and nodded at the door behind her. He rather got the impression that if the decision had been up to her, he’d be headed out through the other door. Or the window.
    The back office was pretty much like the front, except that the mangy carpet was covered with heaps of paper and buff, red, orange, green and blue folders. At least someone had made an effort to decorate the walls; they were hung with a huge collection of tomahawks, each one with a little card under it to tell you where it had come from and who it’d been made by. Behind the desk, just visible through a haze of blue cigar smoke—
    Frank recognised Mr Tanner at once. That was only to be expected. All through his early childhood he’d been told about him: eat your nice dinner, tidy your room, be polite to the visitors or Mr Tanner will come and get you. And when, not unreasonably, he’d asked, ‘What’s a mister tanner, mummy and daddy?’ they’d conjured up for him a mental image of a hunched, evil little man with curly salt-and-pepper hair, huge eyes magnified to disturbing size by massive glasses, wicked sharp teeth, a devilish grin and plumes of smoke coming out of his nose. Young Frank Carpenter’s plate was always polished clean and his bedroom immaculately tidy until he reached the age when that sort of fatuous threat no longer worked, and he’d come to assume that Mr Tanner was about as real as the tooth fairy or the Easter bunny.
    Apparently not. If anything, his parents’ description had been an understatement. The little man lifted his head and glared at him. ‘Well?’ he said.
    ‘Dennis Tanner?’
    ‘That’s me,’ the little man said, in a strong Australian accent. ‘Who the hell are you?’
    ‘My name’s Frank Carpenter. I believe you knew my—’
    ‘Oh shit,’ Mr Tanner said. ‘No, hang on, that can’t be right. Last time I saw Paul Carpenter and Sophie bloody Pettingell was only three years ago, and they sure as hell didn’t have a kid, so—’
    An embarrassed grin slithered across Frank’s face. ‘It’s complicated,’ he said. ‘But yes. My mum and dad are Sophie and Paul Carpenter. They send their love, by the way,’ he added, because if you climb too far up the moral high ground there are avalanches and yetis.
    ‘Balls,’ said Mr Tanner succinctly. ‘How complicated?’
    ‘Very.’
    Mr Tanner sighed, gusting smoke in Frank’s face. ‘Park your bum,’ he said reluctantly. ‘Curiosity’s always been my downfall. No, scratch that. Your bloody mum and dad were my downfall. Curiosity’s just one of my many nasty habits.’ He leaned forward across the desk, peering at Frank through his bulletproof-glassthick lenses. ‘Now you mention it, there’s definitely a resemblance. You’ve got my great-great-grandad’s chin, for one thing.’ He grinned, suddenly as a shark’s jaws snapping shut. ‘Your dad mentioned that we’re related, did he?’
    Frank nodded. ‘Distant