Author's note: This is my very first New Tricks story, so please be gentle, dear readers. Also, I've spent large parts of my life in both the U.S. and the U.K., and as a result I end up writing/spelling/speaking like a woman without a country, so forgive the inevitable Americanisms and inconsistencies that will crop up. On with the show!

Separate Tables

The tapping of her heels echoed hollowly on the pavement, the only sound penetrating the blanket of fog that had descended suddenly at mid-day to enshroud greater London. The narrow side street was dark, the scattered lights peeping from flat and shop windows able to do no more than illuminate the small foggy haloes that encircled them. The evening was like something penned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and she might have perceived the atmosphere as eerie – might have, if she weren't Sandra Pullman, the Met's most prominent female detective superintendent and all-around tough bitch.

Her confident, take-no-prisoners gait faltered as she squinted to make out an address through the mist. At least the steady drizzle had let up for now. Maybe it, too, was taking a tea break.

Sandra felt her features relax into a smile. The sign – of the old-fashioned painted wooden variety – was so unobtrusive as to be virtually invisible tonight, but she could still make out the contours of a jolly little porcine creature. This was it, then: The Spotted Pig.

She stepped through the heavy door and into another world, one that was warm and cozy and redolent of the odors of organic market greens and locally sourced meats so fresh they were practically still oinking and mooing as black-clad servers whisked various gastronomic delights onto tables occupied by the gastropub's eager diners. The thought of merry little cows and pigs skipping off to be slaughtered might, she supposed, be off-putting to some people; but while Sandra was many things, overly sentimental was not one of them – especially when sentimentality threatened to interfere between her and a really spectacular meal. Besides, as she'd once admitted, she didn't really get pet people. Generally she preferred her animals cooked.

The apologetic hostess murmured that there had been a mix-up with the table Sandra had booked a month in advance – some green employee had slotted her in at a table often held in reserve for one of the pub's "special customers," who'd rung up to say he would be dining with them this evening. Sandra gritted her teeth but, when she was settled five minutes later at the end of the bar with a large glass of Shiraz clutched firmly in her right hand, she assured herself that the momentary annoyance was forgotten. Naturally in all fairness her booking should have taken precedence over the gustatory whims of some shadowy character who was probably a villain (not really all that unlikely, in this not-quite-gentrified neighborhood in the shadow of Smithfield Market), but she didn't bother working up to righteous indignation. She was too comfortable. The long bar shone a rich mahogany under the warm yellow lights, and she was still close enough to the corner fireplace to feel its flickering heat at her back. It was a welcome addition on this unseasonably cool, dismal evening.

Of course, the only unoccupied table – the really prime real estate cozily ensconced in the corner by the massive fireplace – should have been hers, but che será será, as the Italians say. Although Sandra had made her booking weeks ago, in the last twenty-four hours she had decided that it would be her own private celebration of the end of the case, and she was determined to let nothing ruin it. Her eyes roved over the appealingly ranged bottles behind the bar. The bartender caught her eye and offered a brilliant smile. He had to be twenty-five years younger if he was a day, but she allowed herself to smile back anyway before lowering her gaze to peruse the menu.

Sandra had been making an effort to do more of this lately, to take herself out for meals rather than nipping round to the local Chinese or tandoori for a take-away. It really didn't bother her to eat alone, except on the rare occasions when she miscalculated and was marooned amidst a sea of billing and cooing couples. (So she had forgotten it was Valentine's Day, which was an idiotic, made-up, over-commercialized American holiday anyway. But she wouldn't make that mistake again next year.) The Spotted Pig was relaxed and mellow, despite the hype surrounding its self-trained, maverick chef, who was creating culinary tidal waves on both sides of the Thames; no one looked askance at a lone female diner.

By no stretch of the imagination did Sandra like to cook, but she loved food. She adored food – good food. She'd had her share of passionate relationships, but none of the others had lasted nearly as long as this one. She'd been a fool not to have taken greater advantage of London's burgeoning culinary scene in the past. Her mother had told her, rather bitterly, that she admired Sandra's ability to be alone, and it was true that Sandra was usually perfectly content with her own company. But somehow being content alone when she was actually home alone, with a take-away, a bottle of not-too-cheap wine, and the telly for company had always seemed less intimidating than being happy to dine out alone. Then a few years ago, after the dinosaurs had forgotten her birthday and she'd rashly accepted the dinner date from hell, Sandra's perspective had shifted. Fact: she was single, and planned to stay that way. Fact two: she was obsessive about the job, something the friends she'd had outside the force could not or would not understand. Fact three: she and her mother were not particularly close, and even had they been, Grace really wasn't well enough these days for outings from her retirement home. Fact four: Sandra would cheerfully join her colleagues after work for a couple of rounds down the pub, but she almost laughed aloud as she pictured them in a place like this, or in any of the tiny ethnic eateries that were her more customary haunts.

She leaned an elbow on the bar and took a healthy sip of the rich wine, her piercing blue eyes glittering brightly as she allowed the scenario to play out in her mind. Jack would do fine here. He'd be his usual polite, respectable self, and while he might sniff dubiously at some of the bloodier items on the menu – she couldn't see him getting excited about gourmet versions of foods like kidneys and tripe that had been all too common in his youth – he would acquit himself well. But he wouldn't relish the experience the way Sandra would. He'd be wanting to get back to his Mary, his garden, his golf swing and his whisky. Dining out with Jack was eerily similar to dining with another version of herself, just a version who wasn't passionate about food.

Then Brian – well, Brian was Brian. If it wasn't roasted, boiled, or mashed, he didn't think it was proper food. She could only take him to fine dining establishments that served jacket potatoes and beans on toast. Besides, his table manners were absolutely appalling; it was bad enough that she had to watch the man eat lunch nearly every day. She wouldn't voluntarily subject herself to more of that torture, and in public to boot. Sandra didn't know how Esther tolerated the man. But then, she considered, Brian's etiquette and gastronomical preferences were likely the least of the older woman's worries.

And there was Gerry. It wasn't as if he'd let anyone forget Stand-Up Standing. Admittedly, Gerry was more on her wavelength when it came to food – but his kind of food, not her kind of food. He'd have her eating horrible "delicacies" like stewed eels. If he were here tonight, he'd probably force her to order the tripe. The thought sent a shiver down her spine, and she was again grateful for the crackling fire. The one time she'd managed to take the team for proper Indian, years ago now, he'd moaned for days that it had done unspeakable things to his insides. (Note to self, she thought. Maybe I should reinstitute the swear box.) She could just see him at her favorite Ethiopian restaurant, sitting on the floor and eating with his hands. Or here! Sandra snorted, and then did laugh aloud. This was exactly the kind of place Gerry loathed. He'd never appreciate its merits, because he'd be too busy banging on about the travesty that was the gastropub. Ironic, really, since the food here was not so different from what he tended to prepare at home: traditional English favorites with a twist, made with fresh ingredients and a great deal of love and care. But he practically broke out in hives at the mere mention of the word gastropub. This was the same man who'd kept the mouldering mascot of the Old Trout on his desk until she'd finally, mercilessly chucked it. Gerry might enjoy the food, but he'd die before admitting it, since to do so would basically be to grass himself up. She'd have to sit here and listen to a treatise on the Death of Old London and Everything a Proper Pub Shouldn't Be. She'd need a whole bottle of Shiraz for that. Maybe two.

Enough of phantom dinner companions. This was a solo celebration of a job well done. The Met had seen the back of John Felsham for the last time. They'd gotten a capital-R result, Strickland was more firmly planted in their corner than even she had realized, and, most importantly, UCOS was intact. Sandra raised her glass, smiling again, and toasted them all in absentia.

The smile slid from her features. By "all," she did not mean Frank Patterson. Granted, he'd been right about almost everything, but then he'd single-handedly given Felsham the reason he was salivating for to dismantle her team and sack her into the bargain. Patterson was a loose cannon, and Sandra did not like loose cannons.

All's well that ends well, she told herself firmly, ignoring the niggling uneasiness that refused to go away.

Sandra slid off her bar stool to nip into the ladies' before her meal arrived, and as she turned she saw that the coveted corner table was now occupied. Good for you, she thought grumpily, swinging her heavy handbag over her right shoulder. She stepped forward, now fully facing the table she had reserved, and her jaw actually dropped.

"Bloody hell!" she exclaimed, loudly enough that heads turned, including the head of the diner in the corner. Their eyes met.

"Evening, guv'nor," Gerry greeted her calmly.

Sandra gaped. "Bloody hell," she repeated, and stalked off to the toilet, now suddenly, irrationally furious.

A modicum of calm had returned by the time she emerged, at least until she realized that her wine glass had disappeared and a pudgy middle-aged man was occupying her seat at the bar. Her eyes narrowed. She needed to find someone to whom she could complain loudly before she burst a blood vessel.

"Sandra."

At the sound of her name she turned to Gerry, who was indicating the place opposite him. Her wine glass, before half-empty and now miraculously full, already stood sentry on the round wooden table. She blew out a breath and crossed the room, flopping down none to gracefully.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she demanded, hearing the strident, petulant tone of her voice but not bothering to alter it. "Did you follow me? And how in hell did you get my table?"

"Follow you?" Gerry responded, looking as if he were deciding whether to be angry or amused. "How could I have followed you when you pissed off from the pub fifteen minutes after we got there? I hadn't even finished me pint." He considered. "More to the point, why would I follow you?"

"Then what are you doing here?" she asked, thoroughly exasperated.

"Presumably the same thing you are, I would've thought," he drawled, coming over all 100-percent Cockney. "'Avin a meal."

At that moment a waitress placed a steaming plate in front of each of them, seemingly offering irrefutable proof of the fact. Sandra took in the way Gerry's eyes lit up and he rubbed his palms together as he admired the crispy golden fat cradling his roasted pork. "Ah hah hah," he chortled in anticipation, and Sandra rolled her eyes, somehow further annoyed by the fact that they had ordered exactly the same thing: roasted pork with cracklings, mashed potatoes and mustard greens.

"Is this the one, ma'am?" a low voice murmured over her shoulder, and Sandra turned to see the server holding a bottle of the Shiraz Sandra had ordered by the glass.

"Yes, but I didn't –"

"I did." Gerry gestured for the young woman to place the bottle on the table, offering her a friendly smile as she did so. Trust Gerry to flirt with anything lacking a Y chromosome, no matter if she was forty years younger than he was and would probably call him "Granddad." "Jack had his end-of-case booze-up while Brian swilled in tonic water 'til I thought he was going to drown in the stuff, but you skived off. So here you go."

It was a nice thought, and Sandra knew she should say thank-you, but the words stuck in her throat. She had a few questions that needed answering first.

"And you? Obviously you had your big booze-up last night with Patterson, given that you were an impressive, even for you, two hours late this morning. Didn't you want to make it two in a row?"

"Christ, I'm well too old for that," Gerry groaned. "I spent most of the day feeling like I'd been hit by the 77 bus."

Sandra finally picked up her fork and knife. "I noticed," she said as she sliced through the succulent pork, which fell away from the bone. "You did sod all at the office today. Not that Jack and Brian were much help, either."

Gerry attacked his potatoes with relish. "It was all paperwork," he reasoned boyishly. "And not only are you the gov, but you're the only serving officer. And we all know how you like to dot your i's and cross your t's."

Her blue gaze turned icy. "That does not mean," she began, punctuating the phrase by savagely spearing a mouthful of greens, "that all the paperwork is my remit, as you well know."

"I'm not even certain of the status of my employment," he retorted cheekily. "Have I been reinstated officially? Has it gone through proper channels?"

Sandra downed a mouthful of the expensive wine and tipped a generous amount from the bottle into her glass. She hoped Gerry didn't expect her to offer to share. "You've never been interested in proper channels in your life, you tosser," she returned almost casually. "You were never officially sacked, as Strickland explained to you. Besides which, I did everything I could to keep the team together and –"

He held up a placating hand. "No one said you didn't," he cut in, his tone unexpectedly gentle. "But admit it, this is one time you were banking on the fact that we'd go rogue."

She didn't admit it, not in words, but for the first time since she'd spotted Gerry her eyes softened above the rim of her wine glass. After Strickland had summarily dismissed her entire squad, Sandra had simply forged ahead, ploughing on with even more than her usual relentlessness, refusing to allow herself to process how devastating the loss of UCOS would be. If things had turned out differently, with her boys truly gone for good, and she had by some miracle been allowed to hang onto UCOS, she couldn't have done it with a different team. She wouldn't have done it. She didn't think Gerry, Jack, or Brian realized that.

She'd seen the disappointment on their faces when she'd followed Strickland upstairs even after hotly defending the actions of her team. By-the-book Sandra, their expressions had plainly said. Even after seven years, she'll do whatever it takes to save her bright, shiny career, but we're expendable. Walking back into the empty office later had felt like walking into someone's tomb – hers, maybe, at the rate things were going. She'd seen those same looks yesterday when she'd shown up unannounced at Jack's, and they'd all stopped what they'd been doing and regarded her silently. Later, when she'd returned with Strickland, she'd hated the us-and-them dynamic that governed the meeting, because for the first time in a long while her colleagues, her friends, were clearly regarding her as one of "them," never mind the fact that Strickland had obviously expected her to behave in exactly the same fashion as her team: to appear, outwardly, to be following his orders whilst disregarding them. She didn't want to think too much about that – about the idea that those three had influenced her understanding of police procedure more than she'd influenced theirs, and that Strickland recognized it.

Brian, Jack, and Gerry's lack of faith in her loyalty stung. That, she admitted to herself, was the true reason she wanted to have a nice celebratory dinner, to affirm to herself that this really was a job well done, and that she'd done all she could to make sure it turned out that way, even if her three colleagues saw it differently. She'd felt helpless. If she had completely disregarded Strickland's orders, she would've succeeded only in getting herself tossed out of the Met on her arse, and she hadn't seen how they could accomplish anything if all four of them – five, if she counted Patterson – were working outside the system.

When she saw how seriously Gerry was regarding her, Sandra realized she'd been silent for several minutes, and that her food was getting cold. "I would've asked you to join me when I came in and saw you," he said solemnly, "but you looked like you wanted to be alone."

"I did." She lifted a forkful of mashed potatoes and pointedly changed the subject. "You still haven't answered my question. I realize you're probably still too paralytic after your night with Frank to cook your own dinner, but what are you doing here? This place is everything you hate. It's –" She leaned in and lowered her voice conspiratorially – "a gastropub."

Her eyes sparkled and Gerry grinned, even as he looked mildly abashed. "Look, it's about as far as it could be from a proper pub," he began, and Sandra wondered if she was in for that treatise after all, "but considered as a restaurant –" He lifted his shoulders in a self-explanatory shrug.

Sandra took a long, slow sip of her wine. "I can't believe it," she said delightedly. "Gerry Standing, last proper cockney standing – How the mighty have fallen. Cor blimey," she mocked.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." He rolled his eyes. "I do appreciate a good meal out once in a while, even if I don't have a kitchen phobia like some people obviously do. As restaurants go, you could say this is my local."

Her eyes widened as she chewed her last bite of pork. God, it was heavenly. No wonder The Spotted Pig was tipped to get a Michelin star next year. "You're the 'special customer', you sod!" she exclaimed. "So explain to me how you manage to have a table on permanent reserve at a restaurant where a mere mortal such as myself has to wait a full bloody month for a booking. Are you leading a double life, Gerald?"

The name made him wince. "As what, a restaurant critic? No, Sandra, I like to savour exquisite things, not tear them apart." The way he said "savour" made her cringe, and she shot him a "dirty old man" glare.

"Still," she murmured, folding her arms and leaning back, "this doesn't seem like your sort of place, and I've never seen you as the type to religiously read the 'Dining Out' section of the Guardian."

"Are you?" he countered.

She shifted a little uncomfortably, wondering if she should cop to the truth. "Yeah, all right?" she answered eventually. "You say blokes read the sport section first; well, I go straight to food. I suppose that means eating is my sport of choice, which is something I'd rather not think too much about."

Gerry flashed that brilliant grin at her. "I'd be proud. You're a bird who knows how to pick a good restaurant. That's a rare quality."

"I don't cook; I'd prefer not to starve. But don't evade my question. I am a copper, you know."

"Yes, governor, I'd noticed." Sandra waited. "My cousin's a partner in the restaurant, all right? Colin Lestade. He branched out of the family business into the restaurant trade. And The Spotted Pig gets all its meat from –"

"Lestade's," Sandra supplied. For some reason this struck her as terribly funny, and she began to chuckle, and then to laugh aloud, while Gerry finished his pint and looked long-suffering. "Oh, Gerry – In such a hurry to get away from the family business, and now here you are, their 'special customer'!"

"Do you want to share a dessert?"

As attempts to change the subject went, it was a flimsy effort, and Sandra treated it with the disdain it merited. "No, I want my own dessert, and you're paying for it." She cackled. "Wait until I tell Jack and Brian! You'll never live this down."

He looked pained, although he was less unwilling to be the cause for her laughter than he would let on. Sandra hadn't done enough laughing recently, in his opinion. "Give over, Sandra," he wheedled. "Don't. There are many dimensions to the character of a man such as myself. You lot don't need to know all of them."

That made her laugh harder, and Gerry feared she might choke on her wine. She was doing justice to the bottle.

Unbeknownst to him, she was revolving a proposition as she calmed herself and wiped tears of mirth from her eyes. It was potentially a terrible proposition, but still.

"I won't tell," she said primly.

Gerry's face lit up with relief. "Oh, gov, thanks, you're solid –"

"Under one condition," she interrupted sharply. The light in his face dimmed, and Sandra knew he was envisioning inexhaustible mines of paperwork. That would probably be a better deal for her, really. But what the hell? Although she didn't mind eating alone, Gerry had turned out to be a surprisingly pleasant dinner companion, and she couldn't resist the opportunity to torment him a little. All in good fun, of course.

"You agree to have dinner with me next week at any restaurant I choose – one of my places."

Sandra watched all the air leak out of her colleague, as if he were a giant balloon.

"Not Indian."

She shook her blonde head. "My rules, take 'em or leave 'em. Say Thursday at eight?"

He nodded slowly. Gerry Standing had never been a man to back away from a challenge, but for the first time in his life, a meal out with a beautiful woman sounded like something to be dreaded. "Thursday at eight," he agreed grimly. "Unless I have the good luck to die in a crash before then."

Sandra smirked, well pleased with herself, and tipped the last of her wine into her glass. Gerry didn't miss the wicked sparkle in her eyes. "Fine, then. Now you can buy me dessert. What d'you recommend?"

Author's note, part deux: I envision these "chapters" more as closely connected short stories than as proper chapters, and I've already written several of them. Please R&R if you want to see where Sandra and Gerry will eat next week!