The Fall

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST COMMISSIONER GORDON arrived home in an irritable mood after a particularly fraught day. His meeting with the Deputy Commissioner Ferris had not been a good one. For some reason he'd become furiously argumentative when the subject of his refusal to grant Jet's request for a police escort to her engagement party had come up. "That's madness!" Ferris had snapped. "Probably the most high-profile woman in the city at the moment is marrying the Boy Wonder and you won't give her a police escort. That's insane!" "I don't trust her Mike,' replied his boss. "I think she uses people and I don't want her using this force for her own purposes." "Don't be stupid," shot back Ferris. "I had the pleasure of sitting next to her at the Police Gallantry Awards and she's the most charming woman I've ever met. I quite envy Robin." Commissioner Gordon had angrily cut the conversation short but his deputy had obviously been fuming for the rest of their discussion. Then, just for good measure, shortly before he left word had reached him that the station was abuzz with the rumour Ferris was actually having an affair with Robin's soon-to-be-fiancee. He dismissed it out of hand but the fact everyone seemed to be talking about it troubled him. Wearily he placed his briefcase on the table in the hall and pushed open the door to the living room. A sweet smell of perfume greeted him as he walked in. Jet swung round in the swivel chair in the centre of the room a broad smile on her face. "Good God!" exclaimed the Commissioner. "Jet, actually," she replied. "Even better than God." "How the Hell did you get in here?" "Oh don't trouble your little brain worrying about Commissioner," she grinned. "Thinking is not your strong point after all is it? You just stick to organising things for your superiors. Things like my police escort. How are we on that?" Commissioner Gordon shook his head grimly and said: "Oh you're going to get a police escort all right. All the way from here to a cell." He pulled his mobile phone from his pocket and began dialling. As his eyes flashed down to the keypad Jet rose from her seat in on athletic movement and kicked the handset out of his grasp. It flew across the room and landed on the floor just as the villainess leapt in the air, spun round and executed a perfect flying kick to his stomach. "Ummmppppphhhh," he grunted as he bent over only for Jet's knee to come up and connect full with his nose. The Commissioner's body snapped bolt upright with his hands covering his face. Jet took the opportunity to hammer a left and right into his unprotected abdomen and he sank to his knees bent over and clutching his sides. "I've been waiting for this Commissioner," said Jet eagerly taking a step back. A second later her foot cannoned into his features sending his body sprawling back against the wall. He lay there limp his eyes closed with Jet's shadow falling on him like a triumphant gladiator. She admired the scene for a while and then grabbed hold of the front of his shirt and pulled him to his feet holding him firm against the wall. With her free hand she slapped him awake until she was sure he was back to full consciousness. Despite readying herself to break him into a thousand pieces Jet couldn't resist a little mental torture to start the process. After all, he'd had the temerity to insult her again. "Now Commissioner, there's something I want you to know before we start the next stage of your education," she said. "Because at the end of it you may be unable to comprehend what I'm saying." She looked straight into his eyes as she spoke. "I have been fucking your Deputy Commissioner. In his bed, in his car - and next in your office when he moves in as your successor. Perhaps across that lovely desk of yours. And all because you wouldn't do what Jet asked. Do you feel stupid now?" With a big heave she pulled her arm back and flung him behind her. He crashed helplessly onto the ground and Jet turned to begin her carefully-planned torture. For the next two hours Commissioner Gordon was subjected to a brutal series of assaults. She held his head under water in the bath until he felt he was going to drown, stripped him and then scalded him with hot cooking fat, probed his body repeatedly with a cattle prod and punched and kicked him mercilessly. All the while she kept up a relentless barrage of mocking insults about his inadequacies. By the time she'd finished he was curled naked in a ball in the corner of the room sobbing. Jet gave him one last kick to the balls as a parting shot and then let him be. He was found in the exact same position the next day by two officers despatched to his house after he'd failed to show for work by noon and couldn't be raised on the phone. Doctors spent hours treating his injuries but when he was transferred to a psychiatric unit a little later the consensus of opinion was that it was unlikely much could be done to repair his mind.