It’s been over a month since Al and Simone split up, but Al’s behaviour is becoming more and more erratic by the day. She’s convinced that Simone left her because she met someone else, and she’s determined to find out who it is. She spends hours on Google, looking for “clues”, and she’s created several false Facebook profiles to try to get access to Simone’s page and the pages of anyone she’s friends with. None of us had seen the split coming, not least Al, who’d been planning on proposing. She’d been saving up for months for a ring and a safari in Kenya so she could propose on an elephant ride – Simone’s favourite animal.

“Here we are, ladies,” the cab driver says over his shoulder as we pull up in front of the neon pink Malice sign.

Daisy pokes a tenner through the glass partition then opens the taxi door. “Let’s go and get Al.”

“Excuse me, darling. Thank you. Excuse me.”

Daisy elbows her way through the throng of bodies clogging up the stairs, and I follow in her wake. We’ve already squeezed our way across the dance floor on the ground level in search of Leanne and Al, but there was no sign of them. No sign of Simone, either.

“Loos!” Daisy twists back and waves her mobile phone at me as she reaches the top of the stairs then takes a left.

I struggle to push my way through the huge crowd of women drinking beer and hanging out outside the women’s loos but finally manage to make my way inside.

“Oi!” A large woman wearing a Superdry T-shirt and oversized jeans shoots out a tattooed arm to bar my way as I attempt to squeeze past her. “There’s a queue.”

“Sorry, I’m just looking for a friend.”

“Emma, in here!” A cubicle door swings open and Daisy waves at me through the gap. She pulls an apologetic face at the woman in the queue. “Sorry, we’re dealing with a crisis in here.”

“Bloody lesbians,” the woman says, “always a melodrama.”

There’s no room for me to squeeze inside the cubicle so I hover outside and poke my head around the door. Al is sitting on the loo with her head in her hands. Leanne and Daisy are pressed up against the walls either side of her. Every couple of seconds, the main door into the loos opens and pumping house music floods the entire space as women file in and out, grumbling as they squeeze past me to find an empty cubicle.

“Al, sweetie.” Daisy hitches up her dress and squats down next to her friend. “Let’s get you home.”