Run: 2026-09-23-01M37PJZM7DJJ3P3Z2FC76HVPS

Molly spread the blueprint across the kitchen table and pinned its corners with four mugs of cold tea. It was not, strictly speaking, a blueprint. It was a birthday invitation shaped like a dinosaur, with a map drawn on the back in purple crayon. "Right," she said. "Saturday, two o'clock. Tobias Pemberton-Hale turns seven. Forty guests. Bouncy castle. And a present table, Bill. An entire table." Bill leaned over, squinting. "Is that a moat?" "That's the paddling pool." "Looks like a moat." "It's a paddling pool shaped like a moat, because Tobias is having a knights-and-dragons theme, which is why you'll be wearing this." She dropped a foam helmet in front of him. Bill picked it up by one floppy plume. It had the dignity of a wet sock. "Why am I the knight?" "Because I'm the entertainment." Molly produced a business card. "Magnifica the Marvellous. Balloon animals, card tricks, and a disappearing act." "You can't do magic." "I don't need to do magic. I only need to make one thing disappear, and it's the pile of gifts." Bill turned the helmet over, thinking. Thinking was a slow, visible process for Bill, like watching a kettle decide whether to bother. Eventually he set it down. "What's our getaway?" "Ice cream van. I've borrowed it from my cousin Derek." "Borrowed, or *borrowed*?" "He'll get it back. Mostly. The chimes are broken, so it only plays 'Greensleeves' at double speed." "That's not suspicious at all." "Nobody suspects an ice cream van, Bill. Children run toward it. Adults ignore it. Police buy a Fab and wave." He nodded, impressed despite himself. Then his face fell. "What about the mums?" Molly's jaw tightened. She had researched the mums. The mums were the real security system. One of them, a woman named Fiona, had once tackled a man in Waitrose over the last organic chicken, and she had RSVP'd yes. "The mums," Molly said carefully, "will be distracted by the prosecco fountain." "There's a prosecco fountain?" "There is now. I'm sending one as an anonymous gift." "That's generous." "It's tactical." She tapped the crayon map. "Four o'clock, cake gets cut. Every child sprints to the patio. That's our window. Ninety seconds. You load the presents into the moat." "The paddling pool." "The moat, Bill. Commit to the theme. Then we drag it out the side gate to the van." Bill was quiet for a long moment. Outside, a car alarm went off and stopped, as if embarrassed. "Molly," he said finally. "What if it's just socks?" "What?" "The presents. What if they're all socks and colouring books? My nan only ever gave me socks." Molly looked at the dinosaur invitation. She looked at the foam helmet. She thought about Fiona. "Bill," she said, "the Pemberton-Hales live on Chestnut Crescent. Nobody on Chestnut Crescent has ever given a child socks." He picked up the helmet and put it on. The plume flopped over one eye. "Then I'm in," he said.