“We’re using Hayley’s room to dance in, it’s the biggest, the one you’ll share,” Flick shouted in Robin’s ear as they forced their way towards the dark room.

Lit only by two strings of fairy lights, and the small rectangles of lights emanating from the phones of those checking their texts and social media, the room was already thick with the smell of cannabis and lined with people. Four young women and a man were managing to dance in the middle of the floor. Her eyes growing gradually accustomed to the darkness, Robin saw the skeletal frame of a bunk bed, already supporting a few people sharing a joint on the top mattress. She could just make out an LGBT rainbow flag and a poster of True Blood’s Tara Thornton on the wall behind them.

Jimmy and Barclay had already combed this flat for the piece of paper Flick had stolen from Chiswell and not found it, Robin reminded herself, peering through the darkness for likely hiding places. Robin wondered whether Flick kept it permanently on her person, but Jimmy would surely have thought of that, and in spite of Flick’s avowed pansexuality, Robin thought Jimmy better placed than herself to persuade Flick to strip. Meanwhile, the darkness might be Robin’s friend as she slid her hand beneath mattresses and rugs, but the party was so densely packed that she doubted it would be possible to do without alerting somebody to her odd behavior.

“… find Hayley,” Flick bellowed in Robin’s ear, pressing a can of lager into her hand, and they edged out of the room again into Flick’s own bedroom, which seemed even smaller than it really was because every inch of the walls and ceiling had been covered in political flyers and posters, the orange of CORE and the black and red of the Real Socialist Party predominating. A gigantic Palestinian flag was pinned over the mattress on the floor.

Five people were already inside this room, which was lit by a solitary lamp. A pair of young women, one black, one white, lay entwined on the mattress on the floor, while podgy, bearded Digby had taken up a position on the floor, talking to them. Two teenage boys stood awkwardly against the wall, furtively watching the girls on the bed, their heads close together as they rolled a joint.

“Hayley, this is Bobbi,” said Flick. “She’s interested in Laura’s half of the room.”

Both girls on the bed looked around: the tall, shaven-headed, sleepy-eyed peroxide blonde answered.

“I’ve already said Shanice can move in,” said the blonde, sounding stoned, and the petite black girl in her arms kissed her on the neck.

“Oh,” said Flick, turning in consternation to Robin. “Shit. Sorry.”

“You’re all right,” said Robin, feigning bravery in the face of disappointment.

“Flick,” someone called from the hall, “it’s Jimmy downstairs.”

“Oh, fuck,” said Flick, flustered, but Robin saw the pleasure flare in her face. “Wait there,” she said to Robin, and left for the press of bodies in the hall.

“Bougie girl, grab her hand,” rapped Jay-Z from the other room.

Pretending to be interested in the conversation between the girls on the bed and Digby, Robin slid down the wall to sit on the laminate floor, sipping her lager while she covertly surveyed Flick’s bedroom. It had evidently been tidied for the party. There was no wardrobe, but a clothes rail holding coats and the occasional dress, while T-shirts and sweaters were halfheartedly folded in a dark corner. A small number of Beanie Babies sat on top of the chest of drawers, along with a clutter of makeup, while various placards stood jumbled in a corner. Jimmy and Barclay must surely have been thoroughly through this room. Robin wondered whether they had thought of searching behind all these flyers. Unfortunately, even if they hadn’t, she could hardly start unpinning them now.

“Look, this is basic stuff,” said Digby, addressing the girls on the bed. “You’ll agree that capitalism depends in part on the poorly paid labor of women, right? So feminism, if it’s to be effective, must also be Marxist, the one implies the other.”

“Patriarchy is about more than capitalism,” said Shanice.

Out of the corner of her eye, Robin saw Jimmy fighting his way through the narrow hall, his arm around Flick’s neck. The latter appeared happier than she had all evening.

“Women’s oppression is inextricably linked to their inability to enter the labor force,” announced Digby.

The drowsy-eyed Hayley disentangled herself from Shanice to extend her hand towards the black-clad teenagers in a silent request. Their joint passed over Robin’s head.

“Sorry ’bout the room,” Hayley said vaguely to Robin, after taking a long toke. “Bastard getting a place in London, innit?”

“Total bastard,” said Robin.

“—because you want to subsume feminism within the larger ideology of Marxism.”

“There’s no subsuming, the aims are identical!” said Digby, with an incredulous little laugh.

Hayley tried to give Shanice the joint, but the impassioned Shanice waved it away.

“Where are you Marxists when we’re challenging the ideal of the heteronormative family?” she demanded of Digby.

“Hear, hear,” said Hayley vaguely, snuggling closer to Shanice and shoving the teenagers’ joint at Robin, who passed it straight back to the boys. Interested though they had been in the lesbians, they promptly left the bedroom before anybody else could offer their meager supply of drugs around.

“I used to have some of them,” Robin said aloud, getting to her feet, but nobody was listening. Digby took the opportunity to peek up Robin’s short black skirt as she passed close to him on her way to the chest of drawers. Under cover of the increasingly heated conversation about feminism and Marxism, and with the appearance of vaguely nostalgic interest, Robin picked up and put down each of Flick’s Beanie Babies in turn, feeling through the thin plush to the plastic beads and stuffing within. None of them felt as though they had been opened up and re-sewn to conceal a piece of paper.

With a sense of slight hopelessness, she returned to the dark hall, where people stood pressed together, spilling out onto the landing.

A girl was hammering on the door of the bathroom.

“Stop shagging in there, I need a piss!” she said, to the amusement of various people standing around.

This is hopeless.

Robin slid into the kitchenette, which was hardly larger than two telephone boxes, where a couple was sitting on the side, the girl with her legs over the man’s, who had his hand up her skirt, while the teenagers in black were now foraging with difficulty for something to eat. Under pretense of finding another drink, Robin sifted through empty cans and bottles, watching the progress of the teenagers through the cupboards and reflecting how insecure a hiding place a cereal box would make.

Alf the anarchist appeared in the kitchen doorway as Robin made to leave the room, now far more stoned than he had been in the pub.

“There she is,” he said loudly, trying to focus on Robin. “Th’ union leader’s daughter.”

“That’s me,” said Robin, as D’banj sang “Oliver, Oliver, Oliver Twist” from the second bedroom. She tried to duck under Alf’s arm, but he lowered it, blocking her exit from the kitchen. The cheap laminate floor was vibrating with the stamping of the determined dancers in Hayley’s room.