Kingsholt by Susan Holliday Page B

right,’ whispered Aidan into his ear. ‘She’s one of the Nimbus tribe. The only one who’s left.’
    ‘Nimbus tribe?’ Sam put down the binoculars and looked hard at Aidan. ‘Sounds like something from the Stone Age!’
    Aidan laughed. ‘It is a bit like that! When Uncle George came across Nimbus and his family living in a squat, he offered them this cottage. Your uncle was the kindest of men, Sam. He knew Nimbus from years back, when they were both children in the village.’
    Aidan looked up at the pest house. ‘They live their own kind of life. A law unto themselves you might say. Or unto Nimbus. It’s true a lot has happened to make him as he is, but —’ Aidan looked sharply at Sam. ‘He’s dangerous. He’s giving Chloe drugs you know.’
    ‘Can’t we call the police?’
    ‘First of all, Nimbus will deny it, and then he might precipitate something far worse. We have to be careful.’
    Sam shook his head. ‘It’s like a story.’
    ‘It is a story, a very old story.’ Aidan picked up the binoculars and looked through them. After a while he gave them back to Sam. ‘What can you see?’
    A tall, hefty man in black leather swung into the view finder. That had to be Nimbus himself. Why was he staring like that at Chloe?
    ‘Caught up, that’s what they are.’ said Aidan.
    Sam went on staring at them. ‘Caught up in what?’
    Aidan sighed and spoke in a voice he seemed to dredge up from another depth. ‘You could say it’s the darkness of a long ago massacre. You could say it’s the darkness that still lingers in the stones round their cottage. It
was
the pest house you see, where they kept people with the plague. Or you could say it’s simply human inadequacy. Blame, anger, revenge. A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye. And grief of course, at losing Rosie and his wife. The common feelings.’
    Sam peered at Aidan over the binoculars. ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘They were circus people once but a tragic thing happened.’ Aidan stopped abruptly. ‘Honestly, Sam, there’s no point going on about it if you’re leaving. Of course if you stay, it’s another matter. You’ll learn about it all too soon anyway. You’ll have to.
And,
how with God’s help, we’re going to try to bring it to an end.’
    Sam looked through the binoculars again. Nimbus and Tammy had disappeared inside the house. If Chloe went up there again, would she ever come out, he wondered.
    ‘She’s in danger,’ said Aidan. ‘What she needs is a friend, a real friend, to protect her. But if you’re going home…’
    A real friend
! Sam felt in his pocket and brought out the train time-table. If he went this afternoon he’d be home in three and a half hours, door-to-door. He could download his latest game and when Mum came home she would be pleased to see him, safe and sound. Nimbus would be blotted out forever.
    And so might Chloe.
    Very slowly he folded the timetable into four and gave it to Aidan. ‘You keep it for me for the moment. I always lose these things.’
    Aidan smiled and put it in his pocket. He squatted down and took out the sandwiches, holding them out to Sam who took one and began to eat. For some reason he couldn’t quite make out, he felt relieved.
    ‘There’s always hope,’ said Aidan, munching vigorously. ‘You mustn’t forget that, ever. It’s one of the great Christian virtues. This valley used to be called the Nimbus Valley and that means light as well as dark. That’s how Nimbus got his name. There are ways through, Sam. There are always ways through. We’ll go to the library and I’ll tell you more.’

Chapter Eight
    Sam looked up at the stained glass window above the stairway, the stuffed heads of tiger and deer, the faded oil paintings and the prints of hunting scenes his mother had described. It’s another world, he thought, it’s as if the whole place is floating into the past.
    Aidan was inspecting one of the tigers. ‘It was Uncle George’s great-grandfather who shot it out