Those Who Love You Most
Disclaimer: New tricks belongs to the BBC, I'm just feeding it while they're on holiday.
Rating T to be safe.
"Sandra! Could we slow down please?"
Detective Superintendant Sandra Pullman looked to her left with a scowl, her usually perfectly composed boss was looking anything but as he nervously braced himself against the dashboard of her car, his knuckles white. She could see his foot pressing down on an imaginary brake pedal, desperately trying to slow the car down. She sighed and dropped her speed, maybe she had been going a little bit too fast, especially considering the foul weather they were driving in, the rain was lashing down on the windscreen, and beating on the soft roof of her convertable. She just wanted this journey to be over, to get home to the bottle of white which was waiting in her fridge to help her forget this crappiest of days.
The day had started out just like any other, she and the boys had just successfully resolved their last case and had found themselves with the relative luxury of being able to chose their next case from three which had been brought to their attention. Unfortunately, her three colleagues all wanted to a different one which lead to a very heated discussion with her stuck in the middle faced with the impossible task of making a decision which would leave one of her boys happy as a pig in poop, while the other two would sulk all day. Sometimes she wondered if she was a police officer or a playschool teacher.
The argument had been interupted by the arrival of Deputy Assistant Commissioner Robert Strickland. He walked into the office and had spent a good few minutes watching the antics of his team of experienced, seasoned officers bickering like a troupe of chimpanzees. They had only noticed him when Sandra had cleared her throat and nodded in his direction. Gerry, Brian and Jack had sheepishly sat themselves down at their respective desks as Strickland had wandered into the middle of the room.
Then he had dropped the bombshell. Her presence was required at a minority in the police conference in Reading and they needed to leave immediately. She had argued him out that it was impossible, that she was too busy, she couldn't leave the office at the start of a new case, any excuse would do but nothing would save her this time. He had told her that their presence had been 'requested' by the commissioner and that not attending was not an option. She had huffed and complained all the way to the car park, and then insisted that she drive them in her car, it had been a small victory, but at least she felt that she was in charge of something.
The conference had been terrible. It had tested every ounce of her self control. Lots of self important pricks, crowing over their achievements and trying to score points over each other at the expense of others. Politicians and executives, complaining and bitching at each other. She had plastered a fake smile on her face and tried really hard not to punch somebody. Nobody there really gave a damn about policing, only about making themselves look good. Her only consolation was that her boss had been as miserable and bored as she had. It had been his idea to slip away half way through the commissioners reception afterwards.
So here they were, heading east on the M4 towards home at seven in the evening an a Friday night. The rain was lashing down now, trying to beat it's way through her windscreen, the wipers were hardly able to keep up with the torrent. She dropped her speed a little more, yes she was miffed at her boss, but there was no need to scare ten years off his lifespan.
"Thank you." He murmured, relaxing his grip on the dashboard.
Sandra drew back from the car in front, leaving herself plenty of room to react, there were still cars speeding along in the lane next to her, seemingly oblivious to the horrendous weather conditions.
"Idiots." She muttered to herself as a lorry came alongside her little saab.
"Where's a copper when you need one?" Strickland smiled. Sandra did a little double-take. She rarely heard him joke, and he'd been in such a foul mood today she hadn't expected any kind of good humour from him. She gave him a small grin.
"I could always turn on the blues." She said.
"Absolutely not! These two particular coppers are off duty and on their way home." He replied, returning the smile.
The lorry edged past, the spray from it's wheels making it almost impossible to see. The scaffold boards and poles loaded onto the back rattled and shook, a tarpaulin flapped like a huge bat, and the straps holding a pallet of thermalite blocks slapped against the side of the truck, sounding like a whip.
"I think I'm going to give this nutter a bit more room." Sandra said.
"Good idea," Robert agreed, then he grabbed the dashboard and pushed his foot down hard onto the imaginary brake, "LOOK OUT!" He shouted.
Sandra stamped her foot on the brake and pulled hard on the steering wheel as the lorry side-swiped the car in front before braking hard and swerving in front of Sandra. The lorry zigzagged for what seemed like an eternity, but was in reality just a few seconds before it ran up against the barrier and tipped over, spilling its load across the carriageway. Sandra couldn't do anything except brace herself as she ploughed into the wreckage, her little soft top cabriolet offering very little resistance against the flying debris. Other cars were crashing into each other as they tried to avoid the wrecked lorry and its destroyed load. She watched in horror as the pallet of blocks hit the road in front of her, seemingly in slow motion, the wood of the pallet shattered as it hit the road and the blocks turned into shrapnel, raining onto them like a meteor storm, smashing throught the windscreen and slicing throught the canvas roof.
She felt Robert grab her hand. Then everything went Black.
/
Author's note. :-O So, do I continue? I feed off reviews.
