And I found out why the angry boy was so angry.

There was, he explained, nothing to not be angry about.

“It’s all shit, isn’t it?” he said once, when our Tuesday wander had taken us to the garages of an estate, and he was kicking a glass bottle against the wall. He was watching it explode into shards, then kicking the shards so that they exploded too. “This fucking town. Nothing to do.” Kick. “Can’t afford anything. Can’t even do college.” Smash. “I’m always going to live in bloody Grace bloody Tower, aren’t I? Where else am I gonna go?” SMASH.

But I lived for the moments, and there were loads and loads of them, when he stopped being angry for a bit and his golden eyes sparkled with that mischievous smile of his. Like he did when I pulled him away from the smashed-up bottle, told him that once I’d done my A levels I could get a high-flying job and buy us a house to live in with a huge garden and a Ferrari to drive around the country. I could get us out of here. He’d smiled and said, “Can the Ferrari have go-faster stripes?”

“Of course,” I replied. “I’ll paint them on myself.”

Because the fact is that it was the world he was angry at. He wasn’t angry at me, or at his friends, or even at his family, most of the time, though I always felt he should have been.

I’ve been furious at them ever since we got that winning ticket, and I am not what you would call a furious person.

Like that kid on the top floor, who likes to whack people to get what he wants, Dean’s family are also used to whacking people in the face to get what they want – including but by no means limited to Dean himself. We jumped up and down with excitement when we read the numbers, we ran the halls of the tower block yelling to everyone we knew. Mum pursed her lips when she realized it was actually the Angry Boy’s ticket, but I didn’t care. We called in the ticket and did the local press, and after that I didn’t see Dean for two solid weeks.

Mum got phone, he messaged me, a few days in. Catch you soon.

It wasn’t the first time he’d sent me a message like that, so I recognized the style: snipped, quick sentences because he only had a few seconds before he got caught.

A week in, I tapped on his front door, and it only opened a crack. It was his mum, hissing, “Go home, Nicky,” and even though I leaned around her, even though I managed to wedge the door open with my shoe, I couldn’t see Dean in the flat. I lost my footing and the door slammed in my face.

That’s when I knew something was really, really wrong.

One thing that is a rule – in fact, I think it’s a fully fledged law – is that you must not buy a Lottery ticket if you’re under sixteen. That’s just not allowed. So of course it’s something that Dean had already been doing since he was fourteen or so.