Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCRDTW8ZZXN6CS27TYX5MG2

Molly spread the napkin across the table and smoothed it flat with the side of her hand. "Right. This is the bouncy castle." "That's a coffee stain." "It's the bouncy castle, Bill. Use your imagination." She stabbed a finger at the middle of the napkin. "Presents go on the trestle table, here, under the banner. Ninety minutes into the party, minimum forty units." "Units." "Presents." "Then say presents. You always do this. You start saying units and vectors and next thing I know I'm in a wheelie bin outside a Greggs." "That was a triumph." "That was a bin, Molly." She ignored him and drew a shaky rectangle. "Now. Entry. Side gate, unlatched, because the caterers use it. We go in at fourteen hundred hours, during the magician." "Why during the magician?" "Because for eleven minutes, every single adult in that garden will be watching a man in a waistcoat pretend a rabbit came out of his elbow. Nobody watches the presents during the magician. It's the golden window." Bill scratched his neck. "What if he's bad?" "What?" "The magician. If he's rubbish, the parents wander off. They start checking phones. They start noticing two grown adults putting a Peppa Pig scooter into a laundry sack." Molly paused. "That's... actually a fair point." "I have those." "Rarely." "I have them at a steady rate and you don't notice them." She sat back. "Fine. We vet the magician. There's a website. Reviews and everything. If he's got four stars or above we go in during the show. Under four, we go in during the cake." "Cake's tighter. Cake's what, three minutes?" "Cake is lights off, everyone singing, forty phones held up recording. It's chaos with a soundtrack. I'll take three minutes of that over eleven minutes of a bad magician." Bill considered this, then nodded slowly. "And the exit?" "Out the side gate, into the alley, load the pram." "The pram." "The pram, Bill. Nobody stops a couple pushing a pram. It's the single greatest smuggling device in the history of crime and it's completely legal to own." "And when they look in the pram and it's forty presents?" "Then they'll assume we're going to a party. Which, technically, we've just left." She folded the napkin and tucked it in her jacket. "Any other objections?" Bill was quiet for a moment. He turned his mug around twice. "Just the one." "Go on." "They're kids." Molly's jaw worked. "They're seven-year-olds at a house with a heated pool, Bill. The dad's a hedge fund manager who evicted an entire street in Deptford. Look him up. I did." "Still kids." "So we leave one." "One?" "One present each. That's fourteen presents left on the table. Fourteen. That's more than either of us got in a childhood, combined." She held his eye. "And the scooter stays. Happy?" Bill exhaled. "The scooter stays." "Then we're in business." She stood, buttoning her coat. "Vet the magician. I'll steal the pram." "You're stealing a pram to help you steal presents." "Bill," she said, opening the door, "that's called infrastructure."