The Square Mile, EC2 to EC4: what happens after you write

EC2, EC3 and EC4 once the offices go dark

EC2 covers Moorgate, Guildhall and the ground around Finsbury Square. EC3 runs from Bank down through Leadenhall and Fenchurch Street to Tower Hill. EC4 takes the western side, St Paul's, Ludgate and the lanes falling towards Blackfriars. Between them they hold the tallest towers in London and some of its narrowest medieval alleys, often on the same block, and the whole of it fits inside a twenty minute walk.

What makes the district unusual after dark is the quiet. Sandwich shops are shuttered by seven, the crowds on Bishopsgate are gone by half past, and by nine a street like Lombard Street belongs to nobody. Guests find this either wonderful or unnerving. Either way, it is worth knowing before you plan a walk between dinner and your hotel.

The order a City booking runs in

First you write, on WhatsApp or Telegram, with a name from the register or a description of the evening if you would rather the desk chose. Second, Cordelia checks that companion's diary against your hour and answers, usually well inside the hour and often within minutes, with either a yes or a different name.

Third comes the confirmation, and it is the part that matters. It sets out her name, the date, the start time, the length, the address and the figure, all in one message. You are asked for the name your room is booked under and the room number at this point, and nothing beyond that. Fourth, she travels. Fifth, the fee is handed to her in person when she arrives, and the subject is closed for the rest of the evening.

If any of those steps cannot be completed, the desk says so rather than improvising. A companion who is not free is not promised. An address that cannot be checked is not accepted. This is the whole of the method and there is no clever part to it.

City hotels, and what a porter actually sees

A hotel occupies the old Midland Bank building at EC2R 8AJ, with a lobby the size of a station concourse and lifts that are never short of people. Another, EC2M 7QN, sits directly above Liverpool Street station. A tall new tower stands at EC3A 7AB beside Bishopsgate, the grand one in the former Port of London Authority building is down at Tower Hill, EC3N 4AJ, and a fifth faces Finsbury Square at EC2A 1DX.

None of these is a partner of the desk, and none has been asked to be. What a porter sees is a woman crossing a lobby to the lifts, dressed like any other guest, carrying a small bag and asking nobody for anything. She does not use the front desk, she does not mention a name at reception, and she does not wait in public. That is the whole of the discretion involved, and it is enough.

Bank, St Paul's and Liverpool Street on foot

Bank is the centre of everything here: Central, Northern, Waterloo and City lines and the DLR, and about one minute from the doors around the junction. St Paul's, on the Central line, leaves roughly five minutes to the EC4 addresses. Liverpool Street, which adds the Circle, Hammersmith and City, Metropolitan and Elizabeth lines as well as national rail, is about seven minutes from the EC2 hotels on the Bishopsgate side.

The Elizabeth line has changed the arithmetic more than anything else in the last few years. A companion coming from the western districts now reaches Liverpool Street in a quarter of an hour, which is why the desk can often promise a City arrival inside forty five minutes of a confirmation on a weekday evening.

Who books here, and when the message lands

Most City bookings come from people staying in the district rather than living in it. A guest in town for two nights of meetings, with a dinner that ended at nine and a flight at noon tomorrow. A visitor who has been in the same conference room since eight in the morning and wants an evening that involves neither a screen nor a colleague. Someone whose team has gone back to the hotel bar and who would rather be anywhere else.

The messages arrive in two waves: a small one at lunchtime from people planning properly, and a much larger one between half past eight and half past ten. The desk answers both, and the later wave is the reason Cordelia keeps writing when most offices are long shut.

Sonya and Violetta, who know these rooms

Sonya is in her early thirties, dark haired and completely at home in the old City dining rooms, the panelled ones where the noise stays low and the waiters have been there twenty years. She likes the cathedral steps after seven, when the tourists have gone and the stone still holds the light.

Violetta is 178 cm, sleek and unhurried, and she builds an evening around one concert at the Barbican, with an early table beforehand and a walk along the concrete highwalks afterwards. She lives in Belgravia and travels east, which the desk allows for when writing her arrival time.

Any other name in the register can be sent to EC2, EC3 or EC4 on the same fees, and travel in Zones 1 and 2 is already inside them.

The districts that border it

South and east the Square Mile runs into Bank and Monument, which the desk treats as its own page because the hotels and the hours differ. North across the old boundary the evening starts much later in Shoreditch. Liverpool Street and Aldgate sit on the eastern edge, Holborn is a fifteen minute walk west along Cheapside and Newgate Street, and the river separates all of it from Southwark.