Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCR2088629G1P9RZ7423T91

The blueprints were drawn on the back of a takeaway menu, which Bill considered a professional touch, and Molly considered evidence that they had, at some point in the last decade, given up entirely. They sat in the van outside number forty-two Ferndale Crescent, watching a woman in a cardigan carry a tray of sausage rolls past a window swagged with silver balloons. The balloons spelled ARCHIE IS 6. One of the balloons had drifted loose and now read ARCHIE IS 8, which Bill found unsettling for reasons he couldn't articulate. "Right," Molly said, tapping the menu with a biro. "Presents are stacked in the front room, by the piano. Twenty-two, maybe twenty-five parcels. Bulk of it's plastic, but there's a bike." "There's always a bike." "There's always a bike." Bill leaned over to inspect the plan. Molly had sketched the ground floor with unnerving accuracy, including a small rectangle labelled TRIFLE — AVOID. The garden gate was marked with an X and the word SQUEAK, underlined three times, because Bill had gone over the reconnaissance twice on Tuesday and had nearly been undone by a hinge. The strategy, such as it was, depended on the entertainer. According to the leaflet Molly had lifted from the village noticeboard, a man calling himself Mister Bimbles would arrive at half past two and perform forty minutes of close-up magic, during which every child in the house would be corralled into the back room and every adult would be standing in the kitchen drinking tea and complaining about parking. Forty minutes of unattended loot. It was, Molly had said at the planning meeting, the closest thing to a gift that the universe had offered either of them since 2011. "And when he does the disappearing rabbit," she said, "that's your cue. Big noise, big applause, in you go through the patio door." "What if he doesn't do a rabbit?" "Everyone does a rabbit." "Bimbles might not. Bimbles might be a doves man." Molly closed her eyes briefly, the way a woman does when she is calculating how much of her life she has spent inside this particular van. Then she wrote DOVES on the menu, beneath TRIFLE, and drew a small arrow to nowhere in particular. Bill produced from his coat two things he was extremely proud of: a canvas sack, and a red felt hat with a white trim. He put the hat on. The effect was less festive than intended, and more like a man who had lost a bet in a garden centre. "It's July," Molly said. "It's misdirection. Nobody questions a man carrying a sack if he's wearing the hat." "They'll question him in July." "They'll be confused in July. Confused is better than suspicious." He adjusted it in the wing mirror with the solemnity of a groom. "This is the thinking half of the operation, Moll. This is the artistry." Across the road, a taxi pulled up, and a small tired man got out holding a cage with something white and fluttering inside it. Molly watched the cage for a long moment, then very slowly crossed out DOVES. "Don't," Bill said. "I said nothing." "You crossed it out with feeling."