It’s just as dark in Coco Rouge as I imagined it would be. And even louder. For the first time in my life, I fully understand the expression “I can’t hear myself think.” If this place were drawn in a cartoon, it would have “Boom! Boom! Boom!” written above it, and wiggly lines around to show the whole building shaking with the force of the music they’re playing.

The bass line is throbbing all around us, as if we just stepped into a gigantic heart. And the decor’s like being inside a heart too—the walls are red and shiny, the upholstery crimson and plush, the carpet dark purple. Inasmuch as I can see the decor, that is, because the club’s already heaving with rich young people a bit older than us, dressed to kill and gripping fancy glasses filled with expensive cocktails.

Taylor and I snatch a glance at each other, and I don’t know which one of us looks more intimidated. Tell us to climb a rope or jump out of a window or smuggle ourselves into a penthouse, and we’ll grab at the chance. But dress up and act like a cool clubber  .  .  . that’s a real challenge. I feel like everyone we pass is staring at me and laughing, because I look all wrong. And, from the way Taylor is setting her jaw and slouching awkwardly, she feels exactly the same.

I look around, though, and with the sensible, reasoning part of my brain, the part that isn’t panicking, I can see that what we’re wearing does fit in here quite well. Taylor, in her embroidered T-shirt and low-cut jeans and DIY shaggy haircut, looks a bit too indie for this crowd, like she should be carrying a guitar. But she’s slouching in such a cool way that she makes everyone else look overdressed.

And my miniskirt and long layered top are exactly right—I can see a girl across the room wearing a dress that’s very like my top, falling off one of her shoulders just the way mine does. I always feel self-conscious going out with what seems to me like a lot of makeup on—mascara, lipstick, blusher—but you get into a place like this and you realize how under-made-up you are by comparison. I like my red lipstick, but I wish I’d put on more eyeliner now. There are a lot of girls here wearing more makeup than clothes.

The guys are in jeans and shirts, looking a bit boring by comparison. I don’t think this is my kind of place—I’m not that keen on the music, which is loud and thumping and all sounds exactly the same, and the boys are too posh to be sexy. They’re all really pink-faced and chinless.

It was ridiculously easy to get in here. Lizzie led us up to the velvet rope, bypassing the line, and a man dressed in black from head to toe lifted the rope and beckoned us forward. It was that simple. Lizzie walked through as if she’d been doing this all her life—which she probably has, considering her dad co-owns this place—and we followed, trying to pretend that we had, too, and probably failing dismally.

But I’d spent so much time at St. Tabby’s watching the nasty games that Plum’s coterie played that part of me still believed that this was a setup, in revenge for us luring Nadia to the coffee shop this morning, and that Plum and Nadia would be waiting when we showed up, having schemed with Lizzie to humiliate us, laughing at us for even thinking that we might get in somewhere as cool as Coco Rouge.

Well, it wasn’t a setup. Operation Video-Puke Deletion is well and truly on.

Grimly, we follow Lizzie through the packed club, a series of rooms that open onto each other, full of playful screams and loud, pounding, drivingly sexy lyrics. Girls are backing up and shoving their bottoms into boys’ crotches in imitation of the dancers in hip-hop videos, the boys roaring with laughter.

“If they could see themselves,” Taylor yells in my ear.

I pull a face in response. No one’s getting me to dance, I swear to myself. I’ll die before I become one of those white girls trying to pretend they’re black. It’s completely and utterly embarrassing. Oh yeah—did I mention that everyone in here is white? Literally everyone. The only black people here are the bouncers. But the music’s all sexy black R&B. Very odd.

We’re held up by a particularly raucous group of girls with long shiny hair, sloshing colored martinis and dangling earrings around with equal abandon. As we maneuver past them, doing our best not to get drenched in flying orange liquid, I can’t help staring at them in envy. They do look fake: they’ve got tons of makeup on, and they’re dressed very tartily—though expensively, Versace rather than the knockoff high street version—but they’re all undeniably, fantastically beautiful, tipsy and staggering as they are. I remember something I read once which said that if you call someone plastic, what you really mean is that they’re prettier than you are. This is the moment when I realize how true that statement is.

Distracted, I lose sight of Lizzie, and I’m struck with panic. Suddenly this dark red club feels like hell on earth. Without Lizzie, without our mission, we don’t fit in here at all. Taylor and I are just a pair of average girls, not half as pretty—or plastic—as the ones here. I spin around, desperately trying to spot Lizzie, and then someone grabs me by the shoulder and pushes me. It’s Taylor.

“Round the corner!” she shouts.

Sure enough, Lizzie’s in the next room, standing in front of another velvet rope as another bouncer checks another list. Honestly, there’s more security here than there is at some airports. She turns round and beckons to me and Taylor as the bouncer reaches over to unclip the rope. A girl to my right, one who’s not getting in, eyes me up and down; I see her doing that glance where she checks out my entire outfit. Thank God I’m comfortable wearing short skirts—short anything, really. You can’t do gymnastics for years without being totally comfortable hanging out for large amounts of time in a leotard.

The girl’s looking at me really enviously now as we walk through, and the awful thing is, it feels really, really good. Not only are we in a club that people are still queuing to enter, but now we’re in the inner sanctum, the VIP area. Nadia and Plum are hot, young, and in Plum’s case, titled (she’s an Honorable, because her dad’s a peer). They get photographed at parties for W and Tatler and tons of other glossy gossip mags. They’re It-girls about town. So they get in free, and they bring their crowd, and the club is even more cool because they’re here. The VIP section isn’t hidden away—it’s on a raised platform, up a couple of shallow stairs, so everyone can see that Plum and her set are here, and feel cool to be in their company.

Even though they’re not allowed into where they are.

It’s a very weird system.

But I understand it. Sort of. Because although I know I shouldn’t, I can’t help feeling cool that I’m in the VIP area. And if it has that effect on me—someone who doesn’t study those magazines as if they were a bible of information on how to dress and where to go and who to be seen with—it must be even more powerful on someone who does.

Like Lizzie, who’s positively radiating pride and excitement as she runs up the steps to the booth where Plum is holding court. Taylor and I immediately duck down at a side table, much less conspicuous than Plum’s, which of course is the most central on the entire dais area.

“That’s her,” I say, nodding over at Plum. My back’s mostly turned to her, and I doubt she’ll spot me—the place is rammed, and by the brief glance I had of her, she’s very merry already.

Ugh, how I hate that girl. When I was at St. Tabby’s, Plum either ignored me or laughed at me and my lack of fashion sense. She mocked my boobs when they suddenly sprouted, and she only took any notice of me when Simon fancied me and she wanted to do him a favor by telling Nadia to invite me to her party. I was just so much girl-meat to Plum, to be thrown at a boy she wanted to keep happy, because apparently Simon has more money than God. And after Dan died, Plum screamed that I was a killer, claimed to have been his girlfriend, and led her entire court at St. Tabby’s in a systematic campaign to send me hate e-mails and texts and generally try to drive me into hating myself even more than I already did.

I’m really glad that Nadia’s given me the opportunity to thwart Plum in some way. Even if it’s a minor revenge for all the pain she’s caused me.

“The one in the middle with the sequins?” Taylor confirms.

I nod.

“Wow,” Taylor says. “They always say that English girls are scruffy, but these ones all look totally Upper East Side.”

“What’s that?”

“Princesses,” Taylor says concisely.

“There’s a countess up there, actually,” I tell her. “The blond one. Sophia Von und Zu Unpronounceable.”

Taylor raises her eyebrows. “I never saw a countess before,” she says. “I must tell my folks, they’ll get a kick out of that.”

“Ross! Simon!” Plum screeches, loud enough for me to hear her even over the roar of chatter and the boom of the music. I am horribly familiar with Plum’s voice, though. In my nightmares, I sometimes hear her screaming “You killed him!” at me.

I twist around further, so the two boys coming up the stairs don’t see my face.

“That’s Simon, the blond one,” I hiss at Taylor, leaning far over the table.

She’s quick to rememeber. “The one who liked you—you were invited to the party so he could try to get off with you?”

I nod.

“And the other one, Ross, thinks the world revolves around him,” I add. “Is he still spotty?”

“Like he’s got measles.”

Her head swivels as she watches their progress.

“Okay, they’re at Plum’s table now,” she says. “No one’s looking over here.”

“Cool so far,” I hiss back. “Now we have to work out a way to get Plum’s phone—”

But just then, a crash of breaking glass behind me makes us both jump. I chance a look round and see Plum climbing up onto the table. The sequins turn out to be a minidress which I have to admit, due to her extreme thinness and her elegant face, she actually manages to make look elegant. On me, with my figure that goes in and out a lot more, I’d look as tarty as if I was trying to snag a footballer for a night and then sell my story to the tabloids. Her chestnut hair is styled in a fringe cut, her greenish eyes are darkly rimmed with eyeliner, and her lips are glossy and pale. She looks sort of sixties: it really suits her. But then, everything seems to suit Plum. I can’t help being envious.

Everyone around her is yelping with excitement and cheering her on.

“Go, Plum! Go, Plum!” Ross is shouting, in a beery voice that suggests he’s already trashed.

“Who wants to see my knickers?” Plum screams, fiddling provocatively with the hem of her minidress.

“No way,” Taylor says, looking at me incredulously.

“I bloody do!” Ross yells, his face now completely red, which means that his skin has flushed the same color as his spots.

Everyone’s looking over at Plum now. She’s dancing, which is no mean feat considering her heels must be four inches high, and there are still quite a few glasses left on the table. Shimmying back and forth, she does a couple of squats, sticking out her bottom, which would work better if she had one worthy of the name, and pops her hips back and forth. Taylor totally cracks up.

“Ohmigod,” she says between sobs of laughter, “that’s the worst booty dancing I have ever seen in my life—”

But I interrupt her, because I have suddenly had a brilliant idea.

“Taylor!” I say urgently. “Get under the table!”

“Why?” She stops laughing, baffled. “Nobody knows my face but Lizzie and Nadia, and they’re not going to say anything! It’s you that—”

“No, not to hide! Not this table!” I correct her impatiently. “To get Plum’s phone! Grab it out of her bag!”

Most girls would freak out on the spot at that proposition. Not Taylor. She sizes up the situation and sees instantly what I mean:

1) Plum is on the table.

2) Everyone else has jumped up to stand around it, clapping and cheering her on.

3) They’re all drunk and collapsing with laughter.

4) Their entire attention is focused on Plum.

Therefore, no one should notice Taylor sneaking through their midst—or hopefully, if they do, they’ll be too hammered to realize what they’re seeing.

“Marc Jacobs bag, chestnut, big limited-edition buckle with MJ on it, barrel-shaped, two big side straps,” she recites with utter seriousness.

I bite my lip so I don’t crack up and offend her. Taylor is so fashion-illiterate she might as well be running over the combination of the safe she’s about to open surreptitiously. We had to look up a picture of the bag online today, to make sure she recognized it. She pored over that photo like she was committing a secret formula to memory—and in a way, she has.

“That’s it,” I assure her. “Nadia says Plum takes it with her everywhere, because it’s a limited edition.”

Taylor briefly rolls her eyes: she has no time for people who care whether a bag is a limited edition. But then, she doesn’t own a single handbag.

“Okay, here I go,” she says, standing up. “Watch my back.”

“If it looks dodgy, I’ll create a diversion,” I promise, and I mean it, though all I can think of is waving to catch Plum’s attention and yelling that her dancing is worse than a four-year-old’s. That should do it.

But it’s very much a worst-case scenario, because if Plum sees me here, and then her phone goes missing, she’s bound to connect the two incidents, and then she’ll come after me. Which is the last thing we want to have to deal with. So we’re both hoping a diversion won’t be necessary. My fingers are crossed so tightly I’m almost cutting off my circulation.

I turn to watch Taylor slipping through the crowd. She bends down, as if she’s dropped something, and then she’s simply gone, disappeared. Though she’s big-shouldered and packed with muscle, Taylor moves surprisingly smoothly, and there doesn’t seem to be a ripple in the crowd around where she ducked down.

Meanwhile, Plum is still giving the table-dancing everything she has, wiggling and shaking, her long hair flying from side to side as she tosses her head around in a way that I’m sure would make me want to puke my guts out if I had a few colored martinis inside me. Her skinny legs flash up and down, and when she does that squatting move again, which makes all the boys whoop, I’m pretty sure that everyone in front of her is definitely, as promised, seeing her knickers. I don’t get why it’s sexy to look like you’re about to go to the loo—even her face is all twisted up like she’s constipated—but clearly there’s a lot about being sexy I’m just not aware of, because it’s going down fantastically with the crowd.

Plum’s halfway through popping out her bum again when it happens. Up till now, the situation’s been fairly contained: Plum’s lot are crowding round the table to watch her, people are looking up from the pleb section to see what’s going on, but no one else seems that bothered—though I do notice the bouncers guarding the VIP area are looking over at the booth and talking into their headsets.

Then it all goes to hell in a handbasket.

It looks like the table’s tipping under Plum’s feet. She falters. The expression on her face changes from constipated to alarmed. She wobbles, and then she sits down heavily on the table, her legs shooting up in the air. The table tilts drastically. The drinks on it go flying, and everyone screams and jumps back.

Oh my God, what if Taylor’s underneath it? Forget getting caught, she could be badly hurt! I’m on my feet, running toward the table, all concerns about getting spotted by Plum forgotten in my concern for Taylor. As I push into the crowd I see Nadia right by the table, her hands outstretched. It looks like she’s trying to steady it. Ross is reaching out to help Plum, who’s trying to stand up, but just then the table does a huge heave, and her heels slip on the surface, probably from all the spilled sticky alcohol. She does a spectacular half spin, her arms flailing, looking like nothing so much as a figure skater on drugs. Despite the gravity of Taylor’s situation, I start giggling—I can’t help it—and someone next to me starts giggling too, and swiftly the entire group is howling with laughter.

Ross has grabbed Plum by one arm and is hauling her off the table. She slips and spins around as he grabs her, and her feet kick the air. People start screaming and ducking as her long pointy heels whip scarily close to them. I duck down too, partly not to get a heel in my face (I notice that Plum is wearing ankle boots like mine, which goes to show how spot-on the salesgirl at the boutique was in advising me to buy them), and partly to see if I can spot Taylor. It’s such a free-for-all by now, though, that there are so many bodies down here with me I can’t see anything at all. I try to crawl, but someone bumps into me from behind and I get stuck.

A deep voice is booming above the table and suddenly there’s a wave of shoving and pushing. Panicky, I manage to get my feet under me and stand up, scared I’m going to get trampled, and as I come up level with the table again I see several bouncers, head and shoulders taller than everyone else, their big black-clad arms reaching out to clear the area. One of them is yelling:

“Everyone back up! Back up right now!”

I still haven’t seen Taylor, which is making me frantic for her safety. I try to slip under the arm of the bouncer in front of me, but he catches me and pushes me back roughly. And just then, on the other side of the area they’re trying to clear, half hidden behind the burly shoulder of another bouncer, I see a shock of blond hair, ruffled up messily. Below it is a pink and white face, its eyes round with shock, its mouth open ditto, and as its eyes meet mine, its lips move and it mouths “Scarlett?”

Oh God. It’s Simon. Simon, who had a crush on me and got me invited to that fateful party where my life went completely off the safe and sensible rails on which it had been running up till that point. Simon, who tried to chat me up at the party, but was sent packing by Dan. Simon, who’s still calling “Scarlett!” at me and struggling to get past the bouncer who’s holding him back, which would be funny if the situation weren’t so dire, because it’s like watching a Chihuahua trying to fight a rottweiler.

My only hope is to get out of here right now and pray that Simon thinks he made a mistake in recognizing me. At least I’ve had the presence of mind not to acknowledge him in any way. I slip back till I’m completely concealed behind the huge bulk of the bouncer beside me, and then I just keep going, retracing my steps, down the stairs and out of the VIP area. At the back of the room, I turn to get a last look at the chaos still raging up on the dais. One of the bouncers has grabbed Plum and is frog-marching her down the steps.

I know I should get the hell out of here, but I can’t resist waiting for a moment to see what happens next.

“No dancing on tables!” the bouncer’s yelling at Plum. “House rules! No dancing on tables!”

“Don’t you know who I am?” Plum screams in fury.

“You could be Princess Beatrice and you still couldn’t dance on the table!” the bouncer booms back at her. “Now settle down, or you’ll be barred for life!”

Ross runs down the steps and starts saying something to the bouncer. I see him reach into his jacket pocket and I assume he’s going for his wallet, trying to bribe him so he won’t bar Plum. Reluctantly, I turn away. I still can’t see Taylor up in the VIP area, so I duck into a side room and pull out my phone, thumbing out a frantic text:

U OK?!

No immediate answer. I wait for what seems like ages. By now, everyone’s heard that there’s been a riot in the VIP area, and people flood toward the archway that leads into it till a couple of bouncers appear and block the way. A few people emerge, but not Taylor. I’m on tenterhooks by now, all kinds of scenarios frantically running through my head: she’s been injured, she’s trapped under the table, she’s been caught going through Plum’s bag and hauled off by the bouncers, who are calling the police. My heart is pounding madly, my phone sweaty in my hand. It feels like hours before my phone finally buzzes with a message, and I stab so urgently at the button to see it that I miss, hit the wrong one, and it takes me ages to get back to the text menu and finally see:

MEET ME OUT BACK

Oh, thank God. I tear through the crowd, which is hard because everyone’s pouring the other way, but I make it through by dint of much shoving and pushing and I run up the stairs and out and duck under the velvet rope and stand there for a minute, not knowing which way to go, till I have a brainwave and pant to the doorman:

“Where’s the back exit?”

He jerks his head to the right. I take off, running as well as I can in these heels, and just as I turn the corner of the building someone grabs me and I yelp, spinning round, and Taylor’s voice says:

“Run!” We both shoot back the way we came, to the front of the club, where Taylor—who’s faster than me, because she’s not wearing heels—makes for a taxi that’s just dropped off a group of partygoers. She grabs the door they’ve just slammed and hauls it open again even before the driver’s had time to switch on the orange For Hire light.

We slump on the seat, gasping for breath.

“The bouncers started putting everyone out the back,” Taylor pants. “I suddenly realized Plum might see you—”

“Where to, ladies?” the taxi driver interrupts, turning round to look at us through the opening in the glass. He’s quite old, with silver hair and a jolly face. “On to your next party?”

“No, we’re done for the evening,” Taylor says.

“Oh, what a shame,” he says, making a tut-tutting sound. “Two pretty ladies like you should be dancing till dawn.”

I giggle, mostly at Taylor’s appalled expression at being called a pretty lady. Fishing in my bag, I pull out the slip of paper on which I’ve written Lizzie’s address, and read it out to him.

“All righty,” he says, setting the cab in motion. “Home, James, and don’t spare the horses!”

I look at Taylor.

“Did it go okay?”

“Yes and no,” Taylor says, still keeping her voice low. “I got the phone, I deleted the video, that’s all done—but, there’s a situation with the handbags.”

“What?”

Taylor sighs.

“Limited edition, my ass. There were two bags exactly the same under that table,” she says. “When Nadia saw Dan’s EpiPen in Plum’s bag, she could’ve made a mistake. It might not have been Plum’s bag after all.”

“Two?” I’m so incredulous I can barely get the word out.

Taylor nods grimly.

“Oh my God!” I exclaim. “That means—”

“Yeah.” Taylor’s had more time to think this through than I have. “It might have been someone else besides Plum who took Dan’s EpiPen.”

I stare at her, my heart sinking.

“This is awful,” I say.

Taylor nods glumly. I slump back into the corner of the taxi. This is so miserable. Twenty seconds ago, I was flying. Operation VPD had gone fantastically: we were well on course to find out everything that Nadia had to tell us, getting closer to solving the mystery of Dan’s murder. And now, it feels like we’re back to square one.

Plus, it might not even be Plum who killed Dan. I realize I was really hoping to find out that Plum was guilty. Plum’s such a bitch; it would make complete sense for her to be a killer. She even had a motive—she was so keen on Dan she told people she was his girlfriend, which totally wasn’t true. If she was jealous of his flirting, that could have made her want to kill him  .  .  . couldn’t it?

But now that I think it over, I have to admit, reluctantly, that maybe it isn’t that strong a motive. And the way Dan was killed was so sneaky. Poisoning the crisps with peanut oil, positioning them in front of him  .  .  . I don’t see Plum carrying out a plan that cunning. She’d be much more likely to stab someone in a fit of temper, or push them off a cliff, and then claim it was their fault for provoking her.

Everything I thought I knew for sure has just dissolved. I slump further into the corner of the taxi seat, curling up in a ball. We’re no closer to solving Dan’s murder than we were at the start of the evening. All this for nothing. I’m so disappointed I could burst into tears.