Dill

Bronte helped Alain and Hugo climb up. It was a struggle to get onto the roof, the lorry’s sides were smooth with little to grab hold of. They had a nightmarish moment when they thought the driver of the lorry had returned, to move it away. Their luck held, he had come back to retrieve something from the cab and left again.

‘Okay, pass it up.’

Eager arms reached down to Kim for the adapted poncho which was pulled into position. 

‘Ready?’ hissed Emma.

‘Yes.’

‘What about the box?’ she said.

‘It's here.’ Joe had found a dumpster full of the shipping containers used for the clones and helped himself. 

Seeing it, Emma shuddered, remembering the hours she had spent in hers, when Mrs Lane decided she didn't want anything to do with her and taped up the carton, to store it in their garage.

‘Right,’ said Kim. ‘Joe, you go round the back of the car with Bronte and keep out of sight. I'll stay in the car and signal as soon as I see him come out. Emma and Delphine, off you go.’

* * *

He emerged as inconspicuously through the front door as he had entered, but Kim was watching. At a sign from her, Emma and Delphine started walking back across the parking area towards the car, apparently completely unaware of Xavier behind them. They seemed to be chatting, oblivious of their surroundings, and the lure was too strong for him to resist. Frustrated that he couldn't connect on their usual wavelength, he walked briskly behind them, drawing close enough to call out, just as they approached the car.

‘Emma, wait. I have to speak to you.’

The girls glanced behind and appeared startled. They hurried into the space between the car and the lorry and had almost reached the back of it when he caught up with them.

‘What is going on-’

He had no time for more. The heavy cloth dropped over his head as Joe swept the clone's feet from under him with his stick. Alain and Hugo hurled themselves down from the lorry on top of the squirming figure and Delphine, quick as a flash, tugged the package away from Xavier and passed it through the car window to Kim. She tucked it under the driver's seat and jammed another coat in front of it. Nobody would be able to access the syringe in a hurry.

‘You're going to have to-’

‘I know. My pleasure.’ Kim watched as her normally placid husband delivered a series of well-placed and forceful blows with his stick, and the struggling figure went limp.

‘And you thought golf was a pointless activity,’ he remarked as he took a couple of deep breaths. ‘Precision drive that was, no slicing at all. Okay people, get him into the box.’

Hugo pulled the cloth away from the now unconscious body. ‘Who's got the tape?’

Kim passed the roll of duct tape and Hugo was generous in his application of it.

‘Where's the cucumber?’

She passed that to him through the window. ‘What are you-’

‘Precaution,’ he said, grinding the mushy vegetable into the mesh behind Xavier’ s ear. ‘That should short-circuit things for the time being, although I'm not sure how long it will work for. It is a shame we don't have something a little more fibrous, to mix with it.’

Rummaging in the shopping, Kim came up with a sandwich. ‘There's plenty of dill mixed with this salmon - any good?’

‘Perfect.’