A Splash of Red Read Online Free PDF

At all events, Mrs Stover had persisted in addressing letters to Miss Dorothy Stover at first, until Chloe defeated her by sending them back unopened: 'Not known at this College.'
    'Jemima Shore. Well,' went on Mrs Stover, as though digesting this information in its turn. Jemima heard her say to someone quite loudly: 'Dad. Did you hear that? Jemima Shore Investigator is in Dollie's flat. I'm talking to her on the telephone.' A strong and very angry man's voice could be heard saying: ‘I don't care who you're talking to on the telephone, not even if its Michael Parkinson himself or the Queen of England. I want to know where Dollie is, that's what I want to know.'
    'You see, Dollie said she would come down here and spend the night with us.' Mrs Stover was now speaking directly into the telephone again: 'And she hasn't come. And Dad's worried.'
    'Worried!' came a shout from the background. 'Tell her I'm not worried. I'm bloody fed up, that's what I am. She rings up her mother the other day, out of the blue, haven't seen her for ages, too busy, that's what she says, busy with what, says I, she rings us up, says she'll be late, so we sit up for her, Mrs Stover prepares a meal, and now her royal highness doesn't even turn up before midnight. Worried. I should bloody well think I am worried.'
    'Whereabouts do you live, Mrs Stover?' enquired Jemima cautiously, when this tirade appeared to have stopped.
    'In Folkestone - "Finches", Bartleby Road. Near the park if you know Folkestone. She was going to spend the night here and take the ferry to the Continent tomorrow morning. She did say she would be late. But now it's nearly twelve o'clock.'
    'It is twelve o'clock,' came the voice of Mr Stover in the background. 'It's tomorrow already, that's what it is.'
    Jemima gave Mrs Stover her most soothing television voice. 'How very worrying for you - both,' she said diplomatically. 'Chloe left here about nine so she certainly should have reached Folkestone by now. There wouldn't be much traffic. She didn't however mention that you were expecting her. She told me she was driving to Dover. I just wonder if she could have forgotten.' As she spoke Jemima - rather wearily, for she agreed with Mr Stover that it was tomorrow already - was rehearsing the familiar routine of checking for the non-arrival of a person. She would, she supposed, have to telephone the hospitals and the police, in case Chloe had had an accident or breakdown on the way.
    There was another silence. Jemima half expected a roar from Mr Stover: 'Forgotten! She'd bloody well better not forget.' Slightly to her surprise there was silence from both Stovers. Then she realized that Mrs Stover was whispering to her husband. A moment later she heard Mr Stover himself take the receiver before speaking in a more conciliatory tone.
    'Well you see, Miss Shore, it's like this. It is just possible that she, Dollie, as Mrs Stover and I are in the habit of calling her, has overlooked the appointment. The reason being—' another brief silence of hesitation - 'I may as well say, to save your time and ours, that I indicated to Dollie that she had better be here by six o'clock in the evening or not come at all. And she said she couldn't, why I don't quite know, but still we'll leave that one. So I said, I indicated to her, that if she couldn't be here at six in the evening to eat supper with Mrs Stover and myself she had better not come at all, under the circumstances, if you understand me. It's true that she still said to her mother that she would come—'
    'I understand.' Jemima felt relief. Chloe had quite clearly not gone to Folkestone, but had driven directly to Dover. It made no sense to leave so late, to spend her time in Bloomsbury chatting to Jemima, if she had been intending to have supper in Folkestone. Why not mention casually to Jemima that she had to visit her parents?
    'Look, I think she probably decided in the end not to come,' Jemima went on. 'Not wishing to keep you up late.' That