Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCR46GYNTNBKKWQAE88JH7Z

The van smelled of cold sausage rolls and ambition. Molly had the blueprints spread across the dashboard, though calling them blueprints was generous; she'd drawn them on the back of a takeaway menu with a pen borrowed from a bookmaker. "Right," she said. "Bouncy castle here. Trestle table with the presents here. Two exits, three if you count the dog flap." Bill leaned in, squinting. "Why have you drawn the dog as a skull?" "Because the dog is a threat, Bill. Its name is Pudding and it has bitten four postmen." "Pudding." "Don't let the name lull you. Names lull. That's how they get you." Bill sat back and unwrapped a sandwich he had not asked permission to bring into the vehicle. "I'm just saying, we've done a jeweller's. We've done a bonded warehouse. Now we're doing Amelia's seventh birthday." "Eighth." "That makes it worse. She's practically an adult." "There are forty children in there," Molly said, tapping the menu, "and every single one of them has arrived clutching a gift. Do you know what the average spend on a children's party present is now? Twenty-two pounds. Multiply that by forty." Bill chewed. "Eight hundred and eighty." "Eight hundred and eighty pounds of untraceable, unwrapped, unregistered merchandise, and not one of those children can identify us in a lineup, because they will all be face-down in a trifle." "Some of it'll be socks." "Some of it will be socks," Molly conceded. "We eat the socks. Metaphorically." Bill looked out at the house. Bunting sagged across the front porch. Somewhere inside, a hired entertainer was losing a war of attrition against a recorder. "What's the entry?" he asked. "You're the clown." He stopped chewing. "I beg your pardon." "There's a clown booked for two o'clock. Bongo. I rang his agency and told them he'd been double-booked in Wolverhampton, so there is now a clown-shaped hole in this event and you are going to fill it." "Molly." "You have the face for it." "That's not a compliment, and I want that noted." "Noted." She reached behind her seat and produced a bin bag. Something inside it squeaked mournfully. "Wig, nose, trousers, one balloon pump, and a bow tie that spins if you pull the string. I've tested it. It's a lot." Bill held up the trousers. They were enormous, patterned with what appeared to be diseased daisies. "And what will you be doing while I am dying on my feet in front of forty children?" "I'll be the aunt nobody remembers inviting. Every party has one. I'll stand near the kitchen holding a glass of warm white wine and complaining about parking, and I will be completely invisible for approximately ninety minutes, during which time I will relocate the gift table into that van." "By yourself?" "By myself, while you keep them entertained." "With what?" "Bill." Molly turned and looked at him with something almost like affection. "You once talked a security guard out of a locked room using nothing but a sincere apology and a lie about his mother. You'll manage a magic trick." Bill pulled the string. The bow tie spun sadly. "If Pudding goes for me," he said, "I'm taking the trifle as compensation."