Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCR0GS3AKX2XAA6SRJ5QHVZ

The van smelled of cold chips and ambition. Bill had parked it under the one streetlamp on Rosemary Close that didn't work, which he considered professional, and Molly considered lucky, because Bill had also parked it half on the kerb and half on a hydrangea. Between them, taped to the dashboard, was the plan. It had been drawn on the back of a laminated pizza-parlour placemat in three colours of crayon, because Bill had liberated the crayons from the same pizza parlour and refused to let them go to waste. The house was a wobbly blue square. The garden was a green scribble. The bouncy castle, which Bill had rendered with real feeling, was a pink lump with turrets, labelled in his careful capitals: DANGER — CHILDREN. "Right," said Molly, tapping the placemat with a nail file. "Party starts at two. Presents go on the trestle table by the patio doors. That's our target." "How many presents are we talking?" "Twenty-two RSVPs. Middle-class postcode. You're looking at forty, fifty gifts, minimum. Nobody turns up to a seventh birthday with one thing anymore." Bill whistled. It was a low, admiring whistle, the kind other men reserve for vintage cars. Molly had done her homework, which was the part of the job Bill enjoyed watching and never volunteered for. She had walked past the house four times in a hi-vis vest, because nobody questions a woman in a hi-vis vest, and she had counted the exits, the dog (one, elderly, deaf), and the grandmother (one, elderly, not deaf, and terrifying). She had established that the birthday child was called Tarquin, that Tarquin's mother had hired a magician called The Astonishing Kevin, and that The Astonishing Kevin was contractually obliged to arrive at half past two in a top hat and a cape big enough to hide a family car under. "So here's the beauty of it," she said. "At two-thirty, Kevin walks in the front door. At two-thirty-one, you walk in behind him." "Dressed as what?" "Kevin's assistant." "I don't have an assistant costume." "You've got a black bin bag and a look of quiet suffering. It'll read as theatrical." Bill considered this. He had been asked to do worse things for less money, most of them by Molly, and most of them on a Tuesday. "And you?" "Side gate. Garden. The mother will be in the kitchen crying over a dairy-free traybake. Nan will be watching the magic. That gives me ninety seconds at the trestle table with two holdalls, and then I'm over the fence into the alley." "Ninety seconds isn't long." "Ninety seconds is a lifetime, Bill. Empires have fallen in ninety seconds." The problem, as Molly saw it, was not the presents, or the gate, or even the deaf dog, who could be bought with half a sausage roll. The problem was Bill, who had a soft face and a fatal weakness for children being pleased about things, and who was currently staring at the pink crayon bouncy castle with a dreamy, dangerous expression. "Bill." "Hm?" "You're not going on it." "Course not," said Bill, and adjusted his bin bag.