‘What the hell is this place, Lina?’ he asked, as they got out and the cab drove off into the night. She was standing in the cold, holding up a little pocket mirror to her face and checking her lipstick, even though there was almost no light to see by. ‘Could we really not have met Janulis in town?’ he added.

‘No.’ Lina was nothing if not direct. ‘He says it must be here. He feels safe here.’ She snapped her compact shut and put it away. ‘Come, it’s this way.’

She led him along the side of the warehouse until they reached a doorway, lit by a single sodium light. Two men stood outside, hands in pockets, hunched against the cold. Lina spoke to them and nodded towards Luke. They gestured for him to raise his arms and patted him down politely, before opening the door for them both.

They went down a corridor, dimly lit, where the thump of techno grew louder with every step, and suddenly emerged into a cavernous dance space where music seemed to pulse from the very walls and purple lasers criss-crossed the sweating throng like frantic searchlights. Was there a theme here? It was hard to tell. Some people were wearing carnival masks, others surgical masks, whether for health protection or out of irony he couldn’t tell. Either way, it was an uncomfortable reminder of all those months of Coronavirus lockdowns.

Luke caught sight of some tanned and muscled young men dancing together in a group, naked from the waist up, and beyond them, up on a pedestal, a girl was suggestively licking what looked like whipped cream off another girl, who was slowly pirouetting in a bikini and high heels. There was a time, Luke thought, when he and his mates would have revelled in coming to a club like this. Now he just felt old and out of place.

Lina reached out, grabbed Luke’s sleeve and pulled him along behind her as she forged a path through the crowd. She seemed to have a plan, seemed to know exactly where she was going. Good. He just wished she could have shared it with him before they’d got this far. Now she was swerving left, away from the dance floor and down another passageway, music still reverberating off the walls. God, he really couldn’t stand this techno din. Several people were lounging against the side of the corridor, passing joints to each other, ignoring Luke and Lina as they squeezed past. Then another turning, and Lina stopped in front of a closed door. She knocked three times and waited for it to open.