She'd secured the perfect seat for the meeting; in the rear corner of the room, next to a radiator and suitably far away from Strickland and the other high ranking officers at the front of the room, currently waffling on about their new initiative to the room of generally disinterested Superintendents.
Sandra had stared at the ceiling for the entire hour, willing time to pass faster so that she could just get to the office and delve into a case file of some gruesome murder. She'd had seven cups of coffee by the end of the meeting, but still felt cold, empty and numb - anyone else would have been bouncing off the walls on that amount of caffeine, but not her. She was still trying to get seventeen years ago off her mind.
She wandered through the corridors of the station after the meeting, suddenly not so eager to go into her cold, lonely office, and choosing instead to observe her colleagues and the criminals they brought in, hoping that it might jolt her back into reality from wherever she was.
The heels of her boots clicked against the floor as she walked towards the front desk, her eyes not fully taking in everything that she saw, merely seeing it then letting it go. Tramps curled up in cells, having got themselves arrested just so they'd have somewhere safe to sleep. Drug addicts sweating and shaking, desperate for their next fix. Young adults having been nicked for assault in nightclubs over futile things magnified by the amount of alcohol they'd had. Sandra sighed, running a hand through her light blonde hair as she walked, passing front desk and walking on to a corridor where the mostly disused offices were, near the back of the station.
"Pullman?" asked a male voice from behind her, and she stopped dead in her tracks. The accent and voice was one unique to its owner; Welsh, powerful and deep - she didn't even need to turn around to know exactly who was speaking to her. She did, of course, if only to see the formerly familiar handsome face of the man in question.
"Mick Powell. Bloody hell." Sandra responded, spinning on the heel of her boot to turn and face him, flashing the grin that the majority of male officers wanted to have directed at them all the time. That man was the dictionary definition of "tall, dark and handsome", she thought - Jesus, the amount of one-night stands the two had managed over the years had been quite staggering. Hendon, training courses, meetings... hell, they'd even managed to find themselves in what had appeared to be a broom cupboard at the Metropolitan Police Gala the year before last. Even when they were married (to other people, of course), they'd succeeded in having a few encounters... but they hadn't seen each other for almost two years now, since he'd been promoted and moved to a station on the other side of London. And now, here he was, looking ever handsome, right in front of her.
His blueish-green eyes were, as ever, mesmerising, his muscular body strangely giving her the feeling of being pulled by some force of gravity nearer to him. He smiled down at her - he was still nearly six inches taller than her, even when she wore heels; standing at almost six feet and three inches tall, towering over her just above average height. She could almost feel her pupils expanding as her eyes seemed to try and drink more of him up, and gulped as silently as she could manage.
"What are you now, Detective Super or Detective Chief Super?" he asked, placing one hand in the pocket of his dark grey suit trousers casually.
"Chief Super, under Rob Strickland."
"Literally?"
"Piss off," she answered with a slight smile, and she saw the flicker of attraction in his eyes that always seemed to appear just before they found themselves either in bed or locked in a room together, away from everyone else, "What about you? I haven't seen you since you were an Inspector."
"Detective Super, me, now. Unfortunately not under you, mind, but I'm sure that with a little persuasion..." he winked, and she bit her tongue, smirking slightly at him. She'd always loved his way of flirting with her - she wouldn't let any other man get away with talking to her like that, but Mick just had a way.
"Are you married again?" she asked nonchalantly, keeping up her façade of pretending that she was interested merely out of need for conversation fodder. Not that it had ever particularly seemed to matter to either of them whether or not the other was married, though - the sex had been equally good, they'd both admit, and they both saw sex as something physical, rather than emotional. Neither saw it to be cheating on their partners, because there was very little said when they met up, never mind any real emotional exchange between them.
"Mmm-hmm. Her name's Charlotte. You know her, I think; she's a DCI."
"Not Charlotte Bond?" she half questioned, raising her arched eyebrows as he nodded, "You have got to be kidding me. Has she had her nose fixed since I broke it?"
He let out a hearty laugh, running one hand through his thick, chocolate brown hair, knowing full well that Sandra was watching his every move intently, like a bird of prey ready to pounce, which was an odd, twisted metaphor, but seemed to work rather well for her. When they were at Hendon, she'd been the single most fanciable girl there - back then, her blonde hair had been longer, but she was still pretty bloody attractive now, with her long, slender legs, captivating cornflower blue eyes and slightly glossy, full lips. Yes, Sandra Pullman definitely still had it.
"You hated her, didn't you?" he asked, almost rhetorically - Christ, Sandra had floored the woman when they were at Hendon together, for reasons best known between the two women, and as far as he knew, they hadn't spoken since. The now DCS wasn't as much of a bitch as people believed, by nature, but by God, she could be one when someone crossed her.
"She told me that my dad got what was coming to him, Mick. She's lucky I didn't sodding kill her, never mind break her nose."
"Oh," he responded simply, not quite knowing what to say as he observed the flicker of something between fury and sadness in her deep eyes. He knew that Sandra had adored her father - she'd thought the world of that man all her life, and to the best of his knowledge, she still did, no matter what he'd done, "I'm sorry," he added, placing a hand on her shoulder, "I didn't know that, see."
Sandra brushed his unusually sincere words away with a small smile, casting her feline shaped, cool blue eyes to the linoleum floor beneath them, then back up to him, her long, black lashes partially shielding her irises from view.
"Do you want a cup of tea?" he asked innocently, nodding to one of the abandoned offices along the corridor upon which they were stood. She knew that "a cup of tea" was a perfect synonym for "sex" where Mick and her were concerned, and for one moment, she considered being mature for once, and declining the offer. But then again, she also remembered Charlotte Bond.
"Yeah, go on then." she replied, her icy eyes glinting devilishly as he opened the door to her left, nodding for her to enter the small room before he did. She recognised this as an office where they used to keep some smaller firearms - it was now a disused room, with nothing but an old, rickety wooden desk and a reasonably sturdy looking chair stood in the corner. He flicked the lights on, locking the door as he came into the room with her, locking the door behind him and grinning like a teenager as they looked at each other silently for a moment, before slowly walking over to where she stood.
She smiled to herself as he stopped in front of her and placed his left hand on the small of her back, feeling an electric current coursing through both of them at the slight contact, and brought his right hand up to run through her thick blonde locks.
"You always live up to your name, Pullman."
"I do try."
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This chapter seems a bit useless, I'll admit, but the new character mentioned within it is central to the whole debacle. Please review!
