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Mack,
If you have the correct 4 lady friends and Google the 4 names, there is one clear source.

Sure. But it doesn't appear in the grid, nor can I see any connection between it and the friend who is highlighted in the grid.

With the pointers from others and your '...in one of the clues' - you are obviously all but there.
Perhaps you have the wrong highlight or taking 'linked to' too literally ...

Thanks, crates. Maybe I'm taking it too literally and I have actually finished. Anyway, I don't have enough of one of the sources to continue, so I'll call it a day.

I am very much in the same boat as Mack, i.e. completely stuck on the final stage of the end game. Lots of Googling has failed to throw up the second set of friends. At one stage, I thought I had them, but although they have the right number of letters (19) their names do not work with the letters I have from the spare words, in particular 3 down (as has been stated earlier in this thread). I have run out of ideas as to where to go from here, so I might have to throw the towel in, unless anyone can provide a hint without breaking the rules of this forum.

Hi, 0pt0. Assuming I have the right second group of friends, I found them from identifying the fourth one and the place they met, which are to be highlighted in the grid. Bear in mind that the central cell is important. I could then decode the other three 'names', starting with one of the 4-letter entries.

0pt0, the key to resolving your impasse may be in the fourth sentence of the preamble. The word “and” is used sequentially. In other words you could add “then” after it.

Mack, Quisling, thank you for trying to help. I have used a letter from the first spare word for the central cell, but I cannot make names from the rest of the letters in the order in which they are presented. I therefore assume that they must be jumbled, but still nothing is jumping out at me.

they are not jumbled

The preamble is fair and accurate, except that "22" should be "21". The link between the source and the fourth friend is well known (I tested it on my son, in his twenties). If you've got the right solution to the endgame, you'll be sure of it. Inevitably, the contrapositive holds.

There is a trap most solvers will fall into, including me.