After You Die by Eva Dolan

be in them sometimes. These were the ones you wanted. You could go in them and smoke and drink and nobody would stop you.
    He found the side gate locked but managed to climb over it. That was where he scraped his hand.
    The back garden was dark and it scared him but he saw an upstairs window left open. Not easy to get to. Not without his brother to give him a boost, but he climbed onto the roof of the old outhouse and made it to the window, dragged himself up and inside.
    He’d landed in the bath. That was where the bruise on his arm came from.
    Then there was the other window.
    The one so far off the ground that Nathan didn’t think he could drop down without breaking his ankles. But the door was locked and the man was talking and through the windscreen of the lorry he could see the police station, all the cars outside and the big vans and two men in uniforms standing on the street.
    The drop didn’t look as scary as the man did, telling him they had to go inside. That the police would call his mum and dad and they’d come to take him home.
    Nathan picked at his combats again. They were dark blue but you could see the wet on them. Too obvious to go outside in. He looked around the bedrooms again, checking in the fitted wardrobes, finding them all empty.
    Downstairs the rooms were just the same. Nothing in any of them.
    Bare cupboards in the kitchen, but through the window he could see into the neighbours’ garden. There was washing out on the line, lots of it, mainly kids’ clothes.
    Last night he’d tried the back door and found it locked and now he searched the drawers for a key, the cupboard under the sink and the corners of the empty room. Nowhere to hide anything and nothing to find.
    He climbed up onto the worktop, feeling the draining board wobble under his foot, and reached for the window over the sink. The paint was flaking and the catch was old but he managed to open it with a hard shove, then jumped out into a flower bed full of weeds.
    For a few minutes he didn’t move. You had to listen and watch, be sure no one knew you were there. The end of the garden had a high wall along it, a factory or something, with no windows for nosy neighbours to see him from. That was lucky.
    Nathan crossed the grass and pressed his eye to a hole in the fence. The kids there had a trampoline and a paddling pool, loads of toys chucked about. It was a tidy garden, though, like Julia and Matthew’s, with a vegetable plot down the far end. They’d probably be the same kind of people. They’d help him if he asked because people like that did. But then they’d ask him things and he wouldn’t be able to answer.
    It made him feel better about stealing from them, knowing they wouldn’t mind.
    Up and over the fence and into the garden, quick as he could, keeping an eye on the kitchen window just in case the woman was at home. He snatched pairs of shorts and T-shirts off the line, took a man’s hoodie that would be too big but there was nothing else warm.
    Back over the fence, back into the house. He changed into the clean clothes in the hallway, went and got his mobile from where he’d left it on the wardrobe floor.
    He turned it on. The battery was still full. Twenty missed calls and messages – Julia, Caitlin, the woman he was supposed to call Rachel.
    Nathan ignored all that and went to the map, saw a little red pin drop down to show him where he was. Grantham.
    He pinched the screen until the map zoomed out enough for him to work out how far he was from home. It looked like a tiny journey. An hour or two and maybe it would be if he knew how to steal a car. His brother never let him do that, though. Said he was still too young and how was he going to drive anywhere when he couldn’t reach the pedals?
    The little red pin was close to the centre of Grantham. Close to the train station.
    He needed money and food. He could get both there. People didn’t pay attention, too many bags and running late. That was how he’d get