Nothing could have prepared Laura for the disaster that ensued after the first dinner guests arrived at seven. When Karen’s daughter, Michelle, came running through to the reception and told her to call for an ambulance, Laura momentarily froze to the spot.

     ‘What’s happened?' she cried out to Michelle’s back as she disappeared through the opened dining room doors as fast as she’d come through them.

     With the thought of blood and carnage racing through her head, Laura picked up the phone to call 999, just as Igor, Karen’s recently appointed Polish, Sous chef, burst through the kitchen door and ran across the empty dining room towards the reception area.

     ‘It not my fault… it not my fault!’ he screeched at Laura as soon as he reached the desk.

     Being used to hotel dramas, and the sometimes frenetic staff she and her husband had employed when they ran their hotel for three years, Laura put her hand up in the air to silence him. ‘’What’s not your fault… and why do I need to call an ambulance?’

     As though he’d burnt his fingers, Igor was shaking his hands in front of him like a pair of demented window wipers. ‘It for Karen… she falling over!’ he ranted, before turning tail towards the bar as though his life depended on it. Much to the amusement of the two couples who were studying the menu while they had a cocktail, he then loudly demanded a ‘doubling, bluedy brandy’ from Dominic, the barman.

     With his chef’s hat now sitting at a ridiculously, precarious angle, he headed back for the kitchen as fast as he could. ‘For the bluedy pain!’ he yelped, as he shot past Laura with the glass held up in the air.

    Laura put the phone down and tried to work out how she could escape the reception desk for a minute to see how serious Karen’s fall was, when Jenny and George walked through the front doors. Although her work was done for the day in housekeeping, Jenny wanted to be around in case she was needed when the restaurant opened. Fortunately, George had come with her.

     ‘Thank God!’ Laura groaned when she saw them. ‘Can you take over while I go to the kitchen, Jenny? Apparently Karen’s had a fall and she might need an ambulance.’

     The look that passed between them said it all. Of course Karen was their first priority, but if she had to go to hospital, the next obvious concern was how they could open the restaurant without their chef.

     ‘Do you want me to have a look at her?’ George asked.

     Jenny scowled back at him. The argument they’d had on the way over had left her seething. He still maintained that Jasper needed a few more days to settle in before he was booted out of their bedroom.

     ‘You’re a bloody vet, George… she needs a doctor!' she snapped at him.

     ‘I’ll have you know—‘

      Laura interrupted him by grabbing his arm.

     ‘A bloody vet can be very handy when there’s not a doctor about!’ he threw back over his shoulder as Laura propelled him towards the kitchen.

     Laura just prayed that Karen hadn’t broken her leg, especially as that was what she suggested she did instead of wishing her luck fifteen minutes earlier. Hopefully it wouldn’t be anything serious, and George could save the day. If it was possible to get Karen back on her feet, they were still in with a chance of opening the restaurant, albeit a little later than expected.

     That turned out to be wishful thinking. Karen was propped up against the kitchen wall, her left ankle swollen, her voice hysterical. ‘You stupid, Polish idiot!’ she berated the visibly trembling Igor.

     Laura rushed to her side before crouching down beside her. ‘What happened?’ she asked. Short of deliberately tripping Karen up, she couldn’t imagine how it could be Igor’s fault.

     ‘The plonker only spilt cooking oil on the floor and didn’t tell me!’ Karen barked in Igor’s direction.

     His hands went up in the air and started to swish rapidly again. ‘No, no, no! I try to tell her… She no listen...’

     Karen let out a yelp as George knelt down in front of her and started to examine her ankle. ‘You warned me in Polish, you moron!' she retaliated over George’s shoulder. ‘How the hell was I supposed to understand you?’

     George tried to calm her down as he used both hands to assess the damage. If he could manage it with the irate Rottweilers that came to his surgery on a regular basis, hopefully, Karen should be a piece of cake. ‘It sounds as though it was just an accident,’ he told her in a calm, measured voice. ‘What we have to do now is get you to the hospital for an X-ray. I can’t feel any broken bones, but that’s the only way we’ll know for sure.’

     Karen was having none of it. She’d waited for this moment since her successful St Valentine’s dinner at the Bedford three months ago, and she wasn’t going to let anything, or anybody stop her now. The desserts and garnished starter plates were ready and waiting in the walk-in chiller, and just as they had done on St. Valentines, everything was cooked and keeping warm in the Bain Marie or oven. With the exception of the things that had to be warmed, fried, sautéed or microwaved, there was very little to do but plate up the food artistically, something she’d already instructed Igor on for hours. If she could just keep going until all the main courses were served, she knew he and Michelle could handle the desserts.

     ‘What can I do to get through the next couple of hours?’ she pleaded, her anger forgotten in her need to achieve her dream.

     Realising she wouldn’t budge on the subject of going to hospital immediately, George stood up and asked Laura if they had any packets of frozen peas. When she rummaged around and found one in the freezer, he wrapped it in a tea towel before moulding it around Karen’s ankle. He was about to ask if Laura had any pain killers, when he noticed Igor spinning through the kitchen door with what looked like another very large brandy. Assuming it was for Karen, he decided she didn't need any more pain relief. Finally, he asked Laura if she had a padded mat Karen could sit on so she could still keep her leg elevated but off the cold, tiled floor.

     Within ten minutes they were ready for action again. Karen was now propped up on a single mattress from the store room; Laura had exchanged her black cocktail dress for a chef’s jacket and trousers, and her heels for a sensible pair of trainers. She would become Karen’s ‘hands’ for the evening, and along with Igor, the KP, and Michelle, be instructed by a chef who delivered commands with a ferocity that made Gordon Ramsey look like a pussycat.

     It turned out to be an evening none of them would ever forget…