Day 2,485

When I was a child I used to love sleeping round my friend Lara's house as she lived opposite a toy shop. We'd spend hours plotting a way to sneak in and spend the night surrounded by toys, just playing til the sun came up before sneaking back in time for breakfast. In the mind of a couple seven year old's it was flawless.

Flawless enough for us to try it one night when her parents went to sleep earlier than usual, lulled into a false sense of security by the dozen sleepovers before where we were absolute angels. And so as soon as we heard their gentle snoring, we set out to accomplish the greatest heist a child could manage.

It went great at first - the window we'd slightly propped open with a pamphlet slid back with ease and back then a basic lock was as secure as you could get so soon as we were past that we were golden. I reckon we'd been playing by flashlight for about twenty or thirty minutes when we heard the rear door unlock.

Nobody was supposed to be there after closing and we thought that if we were caught the worst we'd face is jail for the night. Kidnapping or murder never once crossed our minds until we peered out from our hiding place among a pile of teddy bears and saw the shop owner and his son lugging a long black bag inside.

They quickly checked the shutters, making sure nobody could see inside as they propped the bag against a wall and cut it open, revealing a bruised and bleeding man who was barely conscious. We watched for hours as they beat him, asked him questions about his job (truck driver, his family (newlywed, first kid on the way), and his route (dockside, postal centre, indie courier sites).

I honestly don't know if he died then or when they eventually wrapped the bag back up with the same tape they used to wrap up presents at Christmas but as soon as we heard the rear door close we rushed for the open window, scraping our arms and knees as we climbed the shelves to get back outside where we waited til their delivery van had driven away.

True to our plan we made it back and under the covers with a handful of minutes to spare before Lara's parents woke up and began to make breakfast. They assumed we'd spent the night quietly playing and that was why we were so tired. We didn't bother to correct them - in our minds we thought we'd be the ones in trouble and taken to jail, not the shop owner and his son who might have killed a man.

We never talked about that night afterwards and the sleepovers weren't the same without the thrill of planning a daring heist. Eventually we drifted apart as friends and to this day we rarely say more than a passing hello but I know she still thinks about that night - we both do every time we pass the cheerful little shop and catch a glimpse of the freshly painted red walls.