20. Fintan
FINTAN
Leaving the supermarket with my purchases, I smile to myself.
Elle is going to be furious when I present her with wooden forks and knives to eat her food off paper plates.
Paper plates with balloons on them, because it was either that or footballs.
Something tells me Elle wouldn’t know a football if it hit her on the head.
My phone rings as I get back to the Range Rover. The deluge of rain stops beating on my head as I get in and slam the door closed. “What?” I say, pulling it out and answering before I start the engine and switch it to the console.
“Have you spoken to Lorcan?” Tiernan asks, as a greeting.
“Nope, why? What’s happened?”
“A file on Snowden unearthed some skeletons. We think it might be connected to Elle. Will you get your arse to Pembrooke Academy in Bedfordshire?”
I frown. “Why?”
“We need to know if Elle went to school there and left nine or ten years ago.”
“Where is it?”
“Near Studham.”
I raise an eyebrow and let out a low whistle. “That is a pretty exclusive area.”
“It’s a pretty exclusive school, and they are not talking over the phone.”
“How gentle do you want me to be?” I tap it into the Satnav and stare at it. “Boarding school?”
“Yeah, and gentle enough to get answers, not so gentle that they brush you off. Sending you the info now.”
“And you can’t get this information through a PI?”
“No. We tried already, and while we could probably sit around waiting for him to work his magic, we want to know now.”
“It’s an hour’s drive away.”
“Better get going then.”
He hangs up, and I give him the finger before I pull out of the parking space.
Rain hammers the windscreen as I leave London behind.
The supermarket bags sit on the passenger seat, paper plates and wooden cutlery shifting every time I take a corner.
I want to see Elle’s face when she realises I’ve decided she can’t be trusted with metal and ceramics.
I want the fire in her eyes and that sharp little burst of outrage that makes her look less trapped.
Instead, I’m driving to a boarding school because a name in a file has started to itch.
I pull up the file Tiernan sent and use an app to read it aloud.
I keep one hand on the wheel while traffic thins and the road opens.
By the time I reach Pembrooke Academy, I have the low-down on this situation.
The Satnav tells me I have reached my destination, and I turn right into an exclusive setting.
It sits behind black iron gates with gold lettering and a security lodge tucked inside the entrance.
It looks expensive, old, and smug. Stone buildings with leaded windows and manicured lawns drowned under grey rain.
The entire place gives off the impression of tradition, discipline, and money covering rot.
The security guard gives me a bored stare as I slide the window down. “Fintan Keane. I’m here to see the headteacher.”
He checks his clipboard from the safety of his hut. “You’re not on the list.”
“I don’t have an appointment.”
“Can’t let you in.”
I smile. It isn’t designed to charm, and he recognises the danger straight away. “Call the office and tell them a Keane is at the gate, and I don’t appreciate being kept waiting. I’m going to give you one chance to phone ahead and tell them Fintan Keane is at the gate and he’s already pissed off.”
His eyes drop to the Range Rover, then back to me. He isn’t stupid enough to poke at it. He picks up the phone inside the hut and turns slightly away, as if that gives him privacy.
It doesn’t.
I watch his mouth move. I watch his spine straighten. Then I watch him open the gate with more speed than his original attitude suggested he possessed.
“Follow the drive to the main building,” he says. “Reception is through the double doors.”
“See? That wasn’t hard.”
He says nothing.
I drive through, the tyres crunching over pale gravel.
The school spreads out around me in a way that makes me roll my eyes.
Old money has a specific confidence. It doesn’t need to announce itself because it assumes everyone already knows.
Pembrooke Academy has that confidence. It has wide lawns, a chapel spire, sports fields, and boarding houses with neat signs and polished brass plates.
It has parents who pay to make problems disappear.
I park outside the main building and sit for a second before I turn the engine off and get out.
Rain hits my face, cold and annoying as fuck.
I don’t bother with an umbrella. Men like me don’t look more respectable with one, and I’m not here to pretend.
I head for the double doors, pushing through into a high-ceilinged reception area designed to make visitors feel grateful to be allowed inside.
A woman behind the desk looks up. She takes in my size, my suit, my tattoos visible at my cuffs and collar, and the expression on my face. Her smile appears a second too late.
“Mr Keane. The headteacher is in a meeting, but—”
“No, he isn’t.”
Her smile stiffens. “I’m afraid—”
“I drove an hour in shit weather. I’m wet, pissed off, and I have somewhere else I need to be. I’m not leaving without answers. Get him.”
She blinks. For a moment, she considers sticking to procedure. I see it flicker across her face and die. “One moment.”
She picks up the phone. Her voice drops, but I still hear enough.
“He’s here now… no, he says he won’t… yes, I understand… of course.”
She sets the receiver down carefully. “Dr Ashford will see you now.”
“Good choice.”
She stands and gestures toward a corridor. “This way.”
I follow her past framed photographs of smiling students in uniforms, old prize boards, rowing trophies, and polished display cabinets filled with silver cups. Everything shines. Everything costs money to maintain. Places like this don’t educate children, they preserve bloodlines and bank balances.
We pass a group of students in blazers. They go quiet when they see me. One of them stares at the tattoos at my throat until his mate elbows him and looks away fast.
The receptionist stops outside a heavy wooden door and knocks twice.
“Come in,” a man calls.
She opens the door and steps aside. “Mr Keane.”
I walk in and shut the door behind me before she can linger.
Dr Ashford stands behind a desk large enough to land a helicopter on.
He is in his late fifties, neat grey hair, navy suit, soft hands, hard eyes.
He has the face of a man who has spent decades telling rich parents that everything is under control while making sure none of the real problems ever reach daylight.
“Mr Keane,” he says. “What is this about?”
“Harry Thompson,” I state. “Why was he sacked?”
Ashford doesn’t sit.
That tells me enough to know I’m in the right place.
His expression closes down in stages. Professional concern first, then irritation, then an old, polished caution. He places both hands behind his back and looks at me across the desk.
“Mr Thompson hasn’t worked here for many years,” he says.
“That isn’t the reason he was sacked.” I move farther into the office and take the chair opposite him without invitation. It’s low and uncomfortable, designed to make parents feel smaller. It doesn’t work on me, and not just because of my superior height. I stretch my legs out and look around.
Bookshelves. Framed degrees. A photograph of Ashford shaking hands with a prince. Another of him standing beside a rugby team.
I look back at him. “Try again.”
“I’m afraid personnel matters are confidential.”
“You can keep saying that, but it doesn’t change the fact that you will tell me, and I’m not leaving until you do. You have five seconds to decide.”
“Or what?” he croaks.
“Or I start contacting parents about a paedo teacher that the school wants to cover up.”
His face goes ashen, and his mouth drops open. “You wouldn’t dare,” he hisses.
“Try me. Time’s up.”
He sniffs in a deep breath and finally sits down, hands folded in front of him. “There was an incident with a student at the time,” he says carefully. “A complaint was made. The board investigated privately, and Mr Thompson was released.”
I sit forward. “Name.”
“I cannot give you the name of a former pupil.”
“You can. You will.”
“No,” he says, and for the first time there’s steel in him. Not enough to save him, but enough to be annoying. “I won’t put that name in your hands without knowing why you want it.”
I study him. He isn’t protecting Thompson or the school. He is protecting the student. Or rather, the student’s parents. That changes the shape of this conversation and also changes our perspective on our little stripper who appears to have come from a powerful family.
“Was it Elle Langley?” I ask, but even as I say the name, I know it’s false.
“No,” he says, almost smugly.
“Elle, though. Not Langley.”
His eyes tighten. That is enough.
I sit back slowly and let the silence stretch until it starts doing work for me.
Ashford looks down at his desk. “You are asking about matters involving a former pupil. A child at the time.” His voice hardens. “I will not give you details to satisfy whatever violent curiosity brought you here.”
“My curiosity isn’t violent.” I pause. “My follow-up questions might be.”
His eyes lift to mine.
I hold them.
He is scared, but he isn’t folding the way most men do. That interests me. It also pisses me off.
“What is her last name?”
He licks his lips. He knows he is trapped. “This stays between us?”
“For now. All I want to know is if my suspicions are correct. I’m not going after the school, Ashford. I want Thompson. If you protect him, even a little bit, I will change that perspective and put Pembrooke on the map, and not in a good way.”
“Hargrove-Pierce,” he says quietly. “Her family is extremely influential—”
“I don’t care about her family.”
“I rather think you should,” Ashford says. “If you are involved with her now, you need to understand what that name means.”
“I understand names fine. Keep talking.”
The steel in him bends under old pressure. “Eleanor Hargrove-Pierce was a pupil here for three years. Bright. Quiet. Not difficult in the way some boarders can be. She kept to herself.”
Eleanor Hargrove-Pierce.
The name settles in my head.
“What happened?”
“I can’t give you the details of the complaint.”
“You can give me enough.”
He looks toward the rain-streaked window, jaw tight. “Thompson was accused of inappropriate conduct. The claim was investigated internally first, found to be proven, and Thompson was dismissed with no criminal charges.”
“Why?”
His mouth tightens. “Her family didn’t want police involvement.”
“Even under these circumstances?” My estimation, which was fairly neutral on this family, plummets straight to hell. The fucking bastards.
“Because the Hargrove-Pierces don’t handle things publicly. They contain them.”
I stare at him. “They contained her?”
“She was removed from Pembrooke and placed into All Saints under her mother’s maiden name.”
“Langley. So you do know it, and you lied to me.”
“She was not Langley while the investigation was underway.”
“Semantics.”
“Protection,” he says.
“Bullshit. Protection involves police and prison. That was reputation management.”
Ashford’s face tightens, but he doesn’t argue. That tells me he agrees more than he wants to admit.
“What happened with her family?” I don’t expect an answer from him, but I’m asking it anyway.
How did Elle go from a posh family to the gutter in less than a decade?
Runaway? She doesn’t seem the type to be a martyr.
She is a survivor. That means her family probably threw her out.
I didn’t think my disgust could slide any further, but it just did.
“I don’t have any details on what happened to Eleanor after she left Pembrooke.”
Figured. It was a nasty business he wanted to forget.
I stand.
Ashford’s eyes track the movement, and the fear he’s been trying to hide finally makes it to the surface.
I have enough, and this little prick doesn’t know anything else.
“Thank you for your time,” I say and leave his office, striding past the receptionist and back out into the rain with one burning question on my mind.
Why has Elle been suffering in poverty when her family are so rich?
It’s a question I intend to ask her at the most opportune moment available to me.
Assuming Lorcan doesn’t demand it from her first.