Escorts in Piccadilly, W1J, with the arcade glass shining and the hotel bars still full

At the eastern end the street is still catching its breath from the Circus, and then, within a couple of blocks, it settles. Burlington Arcade runs off to the north under glass, watched over by top hatted beadles who will, in complete seriousness, ask you not to whistle, run or sing. Next door, the Royal Academy sits inside Burlington House behind a courtyard, one of the few spots on this road where the traffic noise vanishes altogether.

Opposite, the grocer's clock chimes on the hour and two figures come out to bow to one another, which draws a small crowd every single time. Beside it stands a bookshop that has been selling on this pavement longer than almost any other in the country, and further west a very large modern one where whole evenings have been lost on the upper floors.

Past Piccadilly Circus the buildings get grander and quieter. Wren's church sits back from the road behind a courtyard that fills with market stalls by day, the arcade at W1J 9BR throws its lamps onto the pavement after dark, and from there it is an easy downhill walk to Hyde Park Corner with the park on your right the whole way.

Piccadilly is the address of the visitor who wants to be in the middle of things without being in Soho. A great many of these bookings are made by guests staying on the street itself, often for two or three nights, often with one free evening in a trip otherwise full of meetings. They want dinner that does not need a taxi and a companion who can carry a conversation across two venues without visible effort.

The second pattern is theatre. The Circus end puts a dozen stages inside ten minutes on foot, and the pre theatre hour is a real thing here: a drink at six, curtain at seven thirty, supper at ten. Bella books that shape more often on Piccadilly than anywhere else on this site, usually as three hours, £1,050, occasionally stretched to the four hour dinner date when the play runs long.

W1J 9BR needs no introduction and rarely gets one; the arcade, the Palm Court and the Rivoli Bar are the reason half the street walks slowly past it. W1J 7BJ sits further west with its green front and a bar that suits a quiet start. W1J 7QY takes the Hyde Park Corner end, big and businesslike with rooms that look down over the park.

Just behind the main road sit W1J 7BH and W1J 8LT, both under five minutes from the pavement, one hushed and one loud, which covers most tastes between them.

None of the above has any tie to us. No relationship exists between this magazine and any hotel on Piccadilly, and nobody employed by one hears a word about you. Downstairs she asks for you; upstairs she knocks, once Bella holds a number and the surname attached to it.

Just 2 minutes from the eastern blocks, Piccadilly Circus offers the Bakerloo and the Piccadilly, plus a great deal of noise. Some 4 minutes west, Green Park is the one most guests choose: calmer exits, three lines beneath it and an airport run with no change at all. The far end is served by Hyde Park Corner, another 8 minutes along.

She arrives by car whichever end you are at. Mileage across the first two zones was counted before you were quoted, so the total does not move afterwards. Tonight on this street generally means around an hour once Bella confirms, stretching when theatre traffic clogs the Circus, and the exact time lands in your chat as she sets out; something set up days earlier keeps to its own clock. You hand her the fee as she comes in, and the room was written down first.

Jasmin told this one over the phone, still laughing. A guest at the Hamilton Place end, W1J 7QY, with tickets he had bought without reading the synopsis, four hours from six. Petite, chestnut hair, an encyclopaedic memory for cocktail twists, she met him in the lobby and put them both in a taxi to the Circus end with twenty minutes to spare.

The play, by his own admission, was very long and very Norwegian. She kept a running commentary going through the interval that he says was better than the second act. Supper afterwards was at a counter off Jermyn Street, and the walk back along the park railings took the last half hour. Four hours, £1,300, and he booked her again before the taxi reached the door.

Angelika lives in Mayfair and treats the Royal Academy as a local, which makes her the obvious choice if the evening starts before the galleries close. Samanta lives close by too and is the one to ask when there is a concert in the plan.

From Soho, just to the east, come Jasmin, who can order for the table at any bar on the street, and Tiffany, who photographs the details everyone else walks past. Margo crosses from Knightsbridge and Violetta up from Belgravia, both reliable for a long evening in a room full of strangers. Liana comes down from Marylebone with a paperback in her bag and no interest whatsoever in rushing.

Step north through the arcade and you are among the galleries at the foot of Berkeley Square. Cross at the corner arcade and the trees of Green Park begin. South of the church lies St James's and its shirtmakers, and at the far western end the hotel row of Park Lane takes over.