Cherringham--The Vanishing Tourist by Neil Richards Page B

know the truth. About Patrick O’Connor …”
    “The truth? Oh, that has a habit of squirreling away. One person’s truth …”
    Latchmore's face turned grim, his mood shifting moment to moment in this conversation.
    “…is another person’s lie.”
    Jack nodded, looked down at the ground. They could go to the police.
    But what would they do? What could they do with an honoured veteran?
    No evidence. They had the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle without knowing what the hell it was supposed to look like.
    “Let us come in. Five minutes, and then — if you want the meeting over, out we go.”
    “Damn right,” Latchmore said.
    Another shift. Another hint of menace.
    But even as he said that, he opened the door wider, and suddenly Jack and Sarah were free to walk into the darkness of the cabin.
    *
    Latchmore grabbed two simple wooden chairs, plopped them in the centre of the room.
    “Sit. Tell me …” the words laced with sarcasm “…what you think you know?
    Latchmore remained standing while Jack and Sarah took the seats.
    No. This was not going to be easy, Jack thought.
    “Five years ago. You served in Helmand province, British special forces.”
    Latchmore said nothing.
    Jack was suddenly aware of Latchmore's shotgun standing in the corner, barrel down … something he might have expected to see in a shack buried in the Appalachians rather than just outside a small Cotswold village.
    “And at the same time, not far from where you led your squad, an American team was doing reconnaissance. And that squad was led by a young American lieutenant.”
    Latchmore cleared his throat.
    Jack could guess that even these simple words … could take the vet back there.
    To the dismal sands, the rocky hills, the country filled with allies who could quickly turn into enemies.
    “Want to tell me how the hell you found this out?”
    Jack nodded. Latchmore's confusion made sense.
    This was all supposed to be secret. The files locked.
    “These days? What can be kept secret?”
    Jack looked at Sarah. He would have preferred if it was just him inside this cramped near-shack.
    Too damn unpredictable, he thought.
    What do we really know about Latchmore, his mental state?
    “So …” Latchmore said, as if trying to sound casual when it was anything but, “…an American squad there, my men nearby. So what?”
    It was defiant.
    Jack nodded.
    “They were wiped out. With your team so close. And that soldier in charge … his father came here. Patrick O'Connor. The young lieutenant’s father. He came right down Barrows Lane. Down here—”
    A gamble there, Jack thought. We don’t know that for sure.
    He saw Sarah doing her best to keep a worried look off her face.
    “And after that …” Jack opened his hands as if the words were a magic trick, “he vanished. Gone . And you were the last person to see him. Because—”
    And now, instinctively, Jack stood up …
    “Because he came here to see you. There’s a connection between his son dying and your squad being right there, doing nothing.”
    A pause. The next words sounding harsh, brutal. “Isn't there?”
    Jack and the tall Latchmore now eye-to-eye.
    The British veteran looked ready to take a swing.
    “What the hell do you know about what happened out there? In that god-damned desert?”
    Jack nodded. “You will tell someone what happened, Latchmore. Maybe not us. But the police, somebody. You'll tell them what happened when O’Connor came down here to see you … And why he came down here.”
    Latchmore looked away.
    And for a moment, Jack hated what he was doing.
    The guy had been through plenty. Jack had worked with cops who went straight from their tours in Iraq and Afghanistan to taking the police test, going from the academy to the streets of New York … and he knew how haunted so many of them could be.
    They could be good cops.
    But they could also have a lot they were dealing with.
    What’s the expression?
    They had seen things.
    Finally, Jack pressed on: