Retribution: Dark Justice

By Steve Thornton

The justice system is there to protect us, but it often fails. Sometimes those failures are so egregious, so dangerous to those who are least able to protect themselves, that they cannot be allowed to stand. But can these failures be corrected and the innocent kept safe?

One man has figured it out and is bringing his own dark form of justice to those that have escaped it. Two detectives, David Felton and John Blanchard, are assigned to investigate what this man leaves behind, and they dont know whether to thank him for ridding the world of scum or hunt him down.

When a serial rapist and murderer unleashes his gruesome talents, the two detectives hope their shadowy avenger will save them the trouble of finding the monster. But the clues arent adding up, and as Felton and Blanchard get closer to the truth, an unbelievable twist in the case makes them question their jobs and their role as protectors.

A gripping, fast-paced thriller, Retribution delves into the gritty underbelly of crime and exposes the powerful, sometimes obsessive drive to bring the guilty to justice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Sep 8, 2011
• ISBN: 9781426989216

Steve Thornton

Steve Thornton grew up in a small mining village in Northern England. After graduating, he joined the pharmaceutical industry and has worked and lived in several different countries. Thornton has six children and now lives in the United States with his wife, Renate.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Man sat in the chair he had silently pulled to the side of the bed in which Albert Moran slept.

He had sat there, motionless and without a sound, for over three hours, watching Albert sleep.

He was dressed entirely in black, his face covered in a balaclava, which showed only his eyes, his nose, and his lips. The total blackness of his garb was in stark contrast to the white latex gloves that he wore on this night and on all of the other nights he had visited Albert’s home. The gloves seemed to glow at the end of his arms.

He had been studying the sleeping man intensely, trying to see something in that face which he could relate to as a fellow human being. Something he might see that would provide a clear indication as to why Albert was who he was, what had allowed him to become the man he had become and allowed him to do the things that he had done.

His study was also, in part, an attempt to find some differentiating feature between who he was and who the person sleeping before him had been.

The Man shuddered as that old ghost wandered, once again, over his grave.

Like all men, he presumed that Albert had started with an equal chance at life—an equal ability to make good and bad decisions, to differentiate right from wrong, and to conform to the behaviors that an orderly society demanded.

The Man had rejected years ago the whole concept of fate or predestination—he was convinced that this was a weak man’s license to explain what he didn’t understand and to excuse the inexcusable.

While not a religious man himself, The Man accepted that other people’s beliefs were not his to challenge or to change—although that particular piece of wisdom had only become his as he grew older and matured.

As a younger man, religion had fascinated him, and he had spent years studying a number of them in detail—Christianity, of course, as this was the purported religion of the society in which he lived—but also Muslimism, Hinduism, and even some of the more exotic and mystical religions of the Far East.

Instead of leading him closer to god, however, his studies had led him to frustration—not with the idea of god itself, but with how god had become misused and abused by those who claimed to represent him in his name. Organized religion—and how that organization of religious thought, no matter which religion he studied—had so corrupted the basic tenets of that religion that it was impossible for him to subscribe to any of them.

He knew, of course, that the words of Saint Paul—that for those who have faith no proof is necessary, but for those who lacked faith no proof is possible—were made redundant by organized religion. Once you had the church, faith was no longer necessary. It was replaced by doctrine, and doctrine demanded obedience. Doctrine seemed to The Man, however, to be dishonestly mutable—each church or sect molding its doctrine to fit the beliefs of its congregation, and its congregation selecting the church whose message best fitted their own particular biases, bigotry, or personal hang-ups.

A perfect incestuous relationship, where each gave what the other needed to justify their beliefs and prejudices.

He had decided, therefore, that it was the hand of man and not the hand of god that moved the world in mysterious ways.

He had found, however, great common ground between the basic premises of most religions—or at least their founding principles rather than the politically correct reinterpretations that they had become—and his own well-developed worldview.

So he sat and watched Albert sleeping, trying to find, but not finding, anything that could provide any clue as to why Albert Moran was the man he was. He looked, The Man decided, like any other person would while asleep—or at least whatever signs were there to be seen were invisible to him.

Albert Moran was not a handsome man—in fact he was not an attractive specimen at all. Overweight and balding, Albert had long since stopped caring about his personal appearance—or at least so it appeared to The Man.

What little hair remained on Albert’s head was thin and wispy and straggled greasily over his bald pate.

He was overweight, and as he moved slightly in his sleep, The Man once again caught a whiff of stale sweat and flatulence that made him crinkle his nose, and as Albert slept in nothing but the suit that god had given him, the odor was in no way captured or confined by any attire.

The Man was at the same time a little disappointed, but not surprised, by the discovery that Albert was not outwardly unique in any way at all. He had, after all, never been able to discern any such telltale sign on any of his previous visits to Albert’s home.

Indeed, for most of his adult life, The Man had studied men like Albert Moran. He had, however, never discovered what made them tick to that strange cadence that made them who they were. But still he had hoped, perhaps this time and at this place in his own life, there might have been some inkling, no matter how small, as to what had made this man different.

With a sigh, The Man decided that whatever made Albert who he was would now forever be a secret—a secret once again hidden from him.

For the second time that night he flipped open the manila folder that lay in his lap, turned on the small flashlight, which he then held between his teeth as he slowly turned the pages, rereading the account of who Albert Moran really was, harsh facts made harsher by the act of committing them to print, emotionless words that spelled out the life and times of Albert Moran, in all of its pathetic and vile darkness.

While preferring not to, The Man forced himself to continue to the end of the document again—lingering on the photographs it held, only long enough to make sure he had mentally recorded every aspect of them—although he knew that this was not really necessary, as the images in front of him were forever burned into his memory.

Details, however, were very important to The Man—his world was full of details, and every piece of information, when combined with every other piece totaled truth. And truth, when supported by those details and facts, could not be denied or wished away. Once truth was established, it then, logically and morally, had its consequences. All that truth needed was an agent to ensure that the consequences were not avoided or mitigated.

On this night The Man would be truth’s agent.

It was important to The Man, therefore, that all of the facts were weighed, the details confirmed and recorded, before the consequences of the truth that was Albert Moran were made full.

Satisfied that due process had been and would be followed, he quietly closed the folder, looked once again at the sleeping Albert Moran, and then glanced to the bedside table, upon which stood a lamp, an old-fashioned alarm clock, and an empty glass of milk, which had been once warmed and then filled with whisky, a ritual that Albert had undertaken for the last twenty years of his fifty-three-year life, to this night.

He noted that the clock showed the time to be just before 4:00 a.m.—the time he had decided to awaken Albert—and that light was starting to creep into the bedroom through the old, worn curtains that Albert used to keep out the world while he slept.

In the half-light, the room looked worn and tired, and as The Man breathed in he thought it smelled of staleness—like life had decided to pass it by and had left it to slowly decay.

It was an old house, one that Albert had lived in for all of his life, inheriting it after his mother had died. He had never moved on and, now, never would.

The Man had studied the mundane comings and goings of Albert’s life for the last three months. But tonight would be anything but mundane. Tonight, he had already changed things in a way that Albert, had he known, would have been horrified.

As a result of his diligent observations, The Man knew a great deal about both Albert Morans—the one who pretended and the one who did not.

The Albert who pretended lived an unremarkable life and embraced solitude as an old lover and as the only true friend he had ever had. He lived quite alone, undisturbed, and in return disturbing no one.

He worked as the custodian of a small, local, low-rent office complex, which housed several small businesses, including the offices of two accountants and three lawyers.

The work was not demanding and required limited skills, which Albert found he had in excess.

He opened up the main door to the building at 8:00 a.m. and closed it again at 5:00 p.m. He washed and waxed the floors, vacuumed carpets, and cleaned bathrooms. He was available to make minor repairs, such as replacing lightbulbs and fixing leaky faucets, killing insects and rodents (although he had made it an art form never to be available when called on to perform such duties), and collected and discarded the trash. In the winter he cleared snow from the sidewalk in front of the building and in the summer mowed its tiny strip of lawn outside of the main entrance. He also collected the rent each month for the building’s owner and was expected to enforce building management rules, although he rarely did so.

By and large, Albert was invisible to the people he worked for—and was happy to be so. He would only be missed if the doors to the office were not open when the first person arrived, or if there was an unusually strong stench of urine in the toilets or, heaven forbid, a shortage of toilet paper.

The Man noted that Albert seldom deviated in his daily routine. On leaving the office, Albert would go straight home on all nights, except for Thursdays, when he would go the local supermarket to pick up a staggeringly identical list of groceries and TV dinners and always, without fail, a quart of Johnny Walker Red Label whisky.

The Albert who pretended had no visitors and visited no one. He did not go out to a bar or visit the cinema, or go to the library, or walk in the park. He was as invisible to the rest of society as he was to the people who worked in the building he was meant to look after.

The Albert who pretended was pretending to be someone who didn’t matter, who could be trusted to live in society, who no one needed to even think of, let alone be afraid of.

Like the rest of society, The Man had no interest in, nor did he care about, the Albert who pretended.

The Man was, however, completely absorbed by the Albert who did not pretend, and what happened when he threw off his pretense, what happened when he became real Albert. The Man cared about that Albert to the depth of his soul.

It was that Albert that The Man had come to meet with on this night.

The Man had known that Albert would begin his preparations to retire for the night at between 10:00 and 10:15 p.m., after he had finished watching his favorite primetime show on TV. He had noted with some amusement that one of Albert’s favorite shows was Law & Order SVU—and he had wondered if life really did imitate art, rather than art imitating life.

Albert would begin by going into the kitchen to prepare his favored beverage and would then stand and watch, while the milk bubbled and boiled in the saucepan—he always waited until the milk began to rise almost to overflowing before removing it from the heat and pouring it into a tall glass, leaving ample room at the top of the glass for a generous slug of Johnny Walker Red whisky, his tipple of choice.

He would then trudge wearily upstairs to his bedroom, where he would set the glass down on his bedside table before going to the bathroom to brush his teeth and urinate—always in that order, The Man had noted. The Man had timed this duo of activity to between three and four minutes, which he had known would give him plenty of time for what he had to do.

He would then return to the bedroom and get undressed, folding his trousers neatly over the back of the chair in which The Man currently sat (although he had removed the trousers from the back of the chair and laid them neatly on the floor before sitting in it) and bundling the rest of his clothes into a ball, which he then deposited into a wicker hamper that stood underneath the window.

Albert would then get into bed, set his alarm for 7:00 a.m. and sit, cradling his warm milk toddy in his hands, looking into the space at the foot of his bed. His face remained blank of any sign of emotion—he just sat there staring out into space, his eyes never even flickering to the glass as he periodically sipped the warm, bittersweet concoction, letting it linger in his mouth for a couple of seconds before gulping it down noisily.

The Man had often wondered what Albert saw as he stared, almost unblinking, seemingly at something just beyond the foot of his bed.

As Albert showed nothing on his face, there was nothing to indicate to The Man whether what Albert saw gave him joy or peace, fear or remorse.

During his silent vigil, The Man had wondered whether, if he had detected any sign of anguish or remorse, his course of action would have been changed. He had in the end, however, decided not—tonight had, after all, been a lifetime in the making.

It was a moot point. Tonight was the last night that Albert would get to see whatever it was that kept him so entranced every night. After tonight had run its course, Albert would never experience anything, ever again.

The Man knew all of these details of Albert’s nocturnal life because he had been watching Albert remotely from the comfort of his own home for several weeks, having installed some inexpensive, but adequate, hidden cameras in Albert’s lounge, kitchen, bedroom, and upstairs bathroom.

While this may have seemed a little over the top, The Man was very methodical and wanted to leave nothing on this night to chance.

While he had found it childishly easy to break into Moran’s home the first time, the plan he had contrived called for something more bold and precise than merely breaking and entering and then killing. He was not, after all, some common thief or assassin.

He had, therefore, felt it important that he watched in person Albert’s nightly routine for the last three nights from within Albert’s own home, as he had wanted to make sure that he could not just break in, but that he could remain undetected for several hours, so that everything would run smoothly on this, his final visit.

While there was certainly a risk that he might have been detected, he had carried with him all of the means necessary to subdue and incapacitate Albert, if necessary.

It had come as no surprise to The Man that it had been so easy to stay, hidden and unnoticed in someone else’s house, while they went about their normal life. He had, after all, done so on numerous occasions in several different homes. All it took, he had discovered, was nerve and the discipline to remain either still and quiet or, when the moment demanded or the opportunity arose, a natural ability to slip quickly and quietly from one shadow to the next.

Had he believed that what he was doing was god’s work he might have fancied that he had been made invisible as a further sign of god at work through him and the righteousness of his actions. But he had no such delusions, and so relied instead upon his nerve, patience, and discipline to perform his own miracles of concealment.

He was greatly helped in his work by people’s misplaced sense of security and safety.

After all, as soon as people close the door behind themselves in their own home they expect to be alone, (if they live alone) and to have locked out any threat from the outside world. Their home is their mental, if not actual, castle.

The Man knew, however, that most of the space in the home of a single person or even a couple, in which the home has more than three or four rooms, is unused by its occupants for most of the time that they are there. There is, therefore, more than enough space for the uninvited to hide and observe.

It was relatively easy for a stranger to lurk, unseen and unnoticed, in their imagined castles.

If people realized this, they would be forever looking over their shoulder when watching TV, or having goose bumps prickle up as they think they catch a glimpse of something from the corner of their eyes or hear a floorboard creak as they close their eyes to sleep.

The Man, however, knew this and was at home in the shadows.

He also knew something that Albert, at this moment, did not. He knew that tonight Albert would die.

He had never been tempted to end Albert’s life on any of those three previous evenings. That would not have been right and proper—it was not what his plan called for. There was a definite procedure and protocol that The Man had decided was necessary to maintain the moral rightness of what he was about to do.

Which had brought him to this evening and to this hour—and now it was time, as the dawn had just begun to break, filling the room with a dull light, by which he could now see around the room more clearly. It was important that Albert could see him and that he could see Albert, if this was to be done correctly.

On this evening, when Albert had left the bedroom to clean teeth/ urinate, The Man had silently moved into the bedroom and added a measure of tasteless and odorless liquid to Albert’s otherwise benign tipple.

The liquid The Man had introduced into Albert’s toddy was a strong sedative, which ensured that Albert would sleep soundly until The Man was ready to awaken him and complete his night’s work. The Man’s work would be additionally made easier by the convenient side effect that the drug induced, which led to the person who had taken it being highly susceptible to suggestion and instruction.

As silently as he had entered the room, The Man had then left, moving into one of the many vacant shadows, allowing Albert to repeat his evening rituals undisturbed, while he calmly waited for his plan to unfold.

The Man waited patiently for over an hour until the sounds of Albert’s heavy, steady breathing indicated that it was safe for him to move back into the bedroom.

He moved silently to the only chair in the room and took the trousers that lay over its back and laid them on the floor. He then moved the chair to the side of the bed and sat down, letting the silence of the house wash over him for several moments before continuing.

The Man began by opening the black canvas bag that he had brought with him and taking a flask from the bag; he then slowly and noiselessly unscrewed its cap and poured its contents into the now empty glass on the bedside table. As earlier that evening, the drink contained warm milk, Johnny Walker Red Label whisky, and as before, The Man had altered the drink to allow him to complete his night’s mission.

Next The Man took out a manila folder, which he placed on his lap, and a gun, a large 9 mm pistol that he also laid on his lap on top of the manila folder.

Finally, he removed an electric cattle prod. It was a long, black, wicked-looking