Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCQRABPAZRYEBWBD9GK52QR

The blueprints were drawn on the back of a pizza box, which Molly considered professional enough, given the target. "Right," she said, tapping a greasy corner with a pen. "Bouncy castle here. Trestle table with the sandwiches here. Presents stacked in the conservatory, unguarded except for a nan." Bill leaned over the box, chewing his thumbnail. "How big's the nan?" "Does it matter?" "Course it matters. Nans come in sizes. There's the little wispy ones that fall asleep in the armchair, and then there's the other kind. The kind with a handbag full of pound coins and no fear of death." "She's about five foot two." "That's the dangerous height," said Bill grimly. "That's the height they're all made at." Molly sat back and folded her arms. In eleven years of crime, she had robbed a bookmaker's, three off-licences, and a man dressed as a wizard, and she had never once had to discuss a nan's dimensions in the planning stage. "The party starts at two," she said. "Fifteen kids, one hired clown, one bouncy castle. Parents will be in the kitchen drinking wine and pretending they don't hate each other. Nobody's watching the loot." "And we just walk in?" "We're invited." Bill's face did something complicated. "We're what?" "I told the mother we were the entertainment. Balloon animals." "Molly." "What?" "I can't do balloon animals." "Nobody can do balloon animals. You twist it twice and call it a dog. Children have no standards, that's the beauty of them. A sausage with an ear is a triumph." "And what are you doing while I'm ruining balloons?" "Loading the presents into the van through the conservatory door. Should take four minutes." Molly slid a paper bag across the table. "Wear this." Bill opened it and pulled out a rainbow wig and a red foam nose. He held them at arm's length like a dead pigeon. "I want it on record," he said, "that this is beneath us." "You stole a Wendy house last April." "That was an opportunity. There was a Wendy house and there was nobody standing near it. This is a plan. Plans have dignity requirements." "Put the nose on, Bill." He put the nose on. He looked, if anything, less trustworthy than before, which Molly hadn't thought was geometrically possible. "One rule," she said. "No sweets." "I wasn't going to take sweets." "You took sweets at the christening job." "I took *one* bag of Haribo and I've apologised to you at length—" "You sat down in the car and ate them and then you couldn't drive because you said your hands felt fizzy." "That was a medical event," said Bill, with what remained of his dignity. Molly stood, folded the pizza box, and shoved it in the bin. Outside, the van was idling badly, as it had for six years. "Two o'clock," she said. "In and out. Fifteen presents, no casualties, no sweets." "And the nan?" "If the nan moves," Molly said, opening the door, "you make her a balloon dog and you run."