From the previous chapter;
 
  An icy chill ran down Laura’s spine as she stood shaking in the middle of the kitchen. With no window to offer any light from the moon or the street lamps, she couldn’t see a thing. What if this ghost wasn’t friendly, and it meant to do her some harm? What if it possessed her and made her do things she didn't want to do? She was so scared, she literally wet herself. The warm trickle travelled down her legs and spilt over her bare feet forming a small puddle around her. Without any light, it was impossible for her to move safely because of the shards of glass from the smashed jar of coffee. 'Please...' she begged. 'Please, turn the light on...'
 
     A minute later, Samantha complied, and Laura couldn’t believe what she saw when she looked down at her feet. There on the white tiled floor in front of her were the words Igor is trapped in the chiller, written in an ink made from instant coffee and hot liquid fear…
 
 
 
When Jenny walked through the Bedford front doors, she found Laura looking wretched as she held her head in her hands at the reception desk. It didn’t take a genius to work out some kind of catastrophe had taken place. The normally fresh-faced, smiling Laura, who was usually annoyingly cheerful at that time in the morning, looked like she’d been to hell and back. With no make-up, and her hair plastered to her head as though she’d just come out of the shower, Laura, dressed in leggings and a sweater, certainly didn’t look like the owner and receptionist of her bijoux hotel.
 
     ‘Bloody hell!’ Jenny gasped when Laura looked up at her with tear-filled eyes. ‘What’s happened?’
 
     ‘I nearly killed Igor…’ was her monotone answer.
 
     At least it was only ‘nearly,’ Jenny thought with a snigger. She’d heard Karen jokingly threaten to murder him on several occasions.
 
     ‘What d’you mean? Did you have an argument?’
 
     The sarcastic snort that escaped Laura’s lips confirmed the irony of the question. ‘I wish… No, it was much worse than that. I didn’t realise he was in the chiller when I came down to check the back door last night, and he ended up locked in there for hours because I shut the door when I thought someone had left it open by mistake.’
 
     Jenny’s hands shot to her mouth. ‘Is he okay?’
 
     An intake of breath escaped Laura’s lips before she answered. ‘Amazingly, yes, although he suffered mild hypothermia. Another four hours and he would probably have been a goner—and I would have been responsible. God, Jenny, apart from when Colin died, this has been one of the worst experiences of my life.’
 
     Ever practical, Jenny glanced towards the dining room doors. The guests would start coming down soon, and if there was no chef, they would go hungry. ‘Do you want me to make breakfast?’
 
     Laura shook her head. ‘It’s okay. I called Fiona and asked her to do it. We only have twelve guests, so she’ll be able to cope on her own. I’d really appreciate it if you could take over here, though. I don’t think I’m up to dealing with checking anyone out, and I need to get changed.’
 
     She needed to do a lot more than get changed, Jenny thought. She looked a complete wreck. ‘No problem,’ she told her. ‘Where’s Igor now?’
 
     Laura stood up and tried to pull herself together. ‘He’s still at the hospital. They said they would have to keep him in for observation but, all being well, he should be discharged later this afternoon. God, Jenny, when I think what could have happened...’
 
     Without hesitation, Jenny shot over to Laura’s side of the reception desk and put her arm around her shoulders just as the tears started to fall.
 
     ‘If the ghost hadn’t woken me up, Igor would probably be dead,’ Laura sobbed.
 
     If her one-liner was meant to render Jenny speechless, it did, but only for a couple of seconds. ‘Ghost?’ she echoed. ‘You don’t mean the ghost they reckon haunted Igor’s room, do you? I thought you said he hadn’t mentioned it.’
 
     Again Laura shook her head. ‘He didn’t, but his girlfriend had a fainting fit last night and after Igor asked me to check her out, she started to say something that suggested someone or something had been in the room with them when it happened. I presume it was that ‘something’ that woke me up at three-thirty this morning and alerted me to the fact Igor was trapped in the chiller. If it hadn’t done that, Igor would probably still be in there now, and I would be sitting here none the wiser waiting for the guests to come down for breakfast.’
 
     As the enormity of what Laura had just said sank in, Jenny felt a shiver run down her spine. The thought that there really was a ghost in the hotel was a lot to take on board. ‘How did it tell you? I mean, did it talk to you?’
 
     Calmed by the fact that she’d been able to tell someone about her ordeal at last, Laura dried her eyes with her tissue. ‘No, I didn’t see or hear it. I only knew it was there because it was flashing the lights on and off when I asked it questions. I’d Googled the subject of poltergeists several times after you told me the story about the storeroom being haunted. Thank God I did. Knowing that it was probably just a trapped soul managed to keep me calm to start with. It was only when it turned off the light in the kitchen and I couldn’t see anything, that I freaked out. I actually wet myself at that point.’
 
     Jenny let out a spontaneous guffaw. ‘I’m not bloody surprised! I would probably have done a lot more than wet myself… It would have been a brown underwear job. ...But how did it tell you about Igor if it didn’t speak to you?’
 
     Laura could still see the image of the words written on her kitchen floor. It was an image that would probably ‘haunt’ her for the rest of her life. When she told Jenny, her hands shot to her mouth again.
 
     'Do you think it’s still in your flat? Have you been back there since this happened?’
 
     ‘Only to grab some clothes after the ambulance took Igor to the hospital. I had a shower in room seven because I knew it was vacant. I’m dreading going up there in case the ghost is still there.’
 
     Jenny knew she should accompany her, but she wasn’t sure if she could cope either. Unlike Laura, she’d never researched into the possibility of there being a ghost in your home, so her only reference to the subject was programmes like ‘Most Haunted’ on TV. If anything had proved the existence of ghosts there, most people had left the scene screaming with the exception of the gay medium who reckoned he could communicate with them. ‘Is there anyone you can call to check it out?’ she asked in the hope that there was someone similar to him who could solve the problem.
 
     ‘I don’t think it would like it if I did,’ Laura told her with a shake of her head. ‘I asked if it wanted me to get a priest, and it not only flashed the light on and off twice to say no, it turned on the microwave and toaster as though it was outraged at the suggestion. It’s obviously a caring ghost, or it wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to save Igor, so I’m not as scared as I was— it’s just that I don’t know what to do for the best. I don’t even know if it’s male or female.’
 
     Jenny couldn’t see why the ghost's gender was relevant and was just about to say so when a guest appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Laura scuttled into the office so he couldn’t see her, and he checked his watch before settling down in one of the chairs in the residents’ lounge to await the opening of the dining room doors. If Laura didn’t want to be seen by anyone, she would either have to stay in the office until all the guests had left, or go somewhere else out of sight before the rest of them came down for breakfast.
 
     ‘Why don’t you go and have a kip in room seven?’ Jenny suggested when she popped her head around the office door. ‘I’ll wake you up when everyone’s checked out, and we can work out what to do for the best then. I’ll try to find out what I can about what happened in Igor’s room all those years ago in the meantime. It might give us a clue as to why there’s a ghost here in the first place.’
 
     The look of relief on Laura’s face inspired Jenny to crack a joke. ‘If I see the ghost I’ll tell it to stay down here and keep me company instead. You need some sleep!’
 
     I might just do that, Samantha thought as she watched Laura making for the stairs…