Sipson escorts in UB7, the rooms behind the northern edge

By road this is the best connected address on the map: two minutes to the junction, five to the central terminals, eight to the western one. Anything arriving or leaving by motorway comes past the end of the lane.

On foot it is the worst. The nearest platform is West Drayton at twenty eight minutes, the next is Hayes and Harlington at thirty two, and the walk to either runs beside roads that were built for freight. Every companion working this lane comes by car for exactly that reason.

The business estates a few minutes north are the reason half these rooms are full. Meetings there finish at six, the room is booked the day before rather than three weeks out, and the evening is decided somewhere between the last slide and the car park.

That shape suits the desk well. A message at half past six with a building and an hour is entirely normal here, and the reply usually comes back inside a few minutes with a name and an arrival window on it.

Indoors, and comfortable. There is a pub on the lane and very little else, so the honest plan is an early table if you want one and the room for everything after it. Nobody should book a UB7 evening expecting to go out into it.

What the lane does give you is time. Nothing is far, nothing takes long to reach, and the whole booking is spent where you actually are rather than in a car. Bianka prefers later starts out here and says so; Luna works the hotel row from ten at night.

Consultants and sales teams in for two nights. Engineering crews on rotation. Travellers whose connection collapsed and who were put here by somebody else, arriving slightly annoyed and with no plan at all.

The last group is the one the desk sees most often, and the shortest booking that makes sense out here is three hours, because her journey is counted inside the figure. That is on the rate board rather than a surprise.

Bianka, Luna and Vanessa all work the northern edge, which puts the lane three minutes from their usual ground. Molly comes across from the old western road and is the one to ask for an early evening rather than a late one.

Liana and Tiffany cover the village on the other side of the junction, and Nancy and Tina take any part of the airport at any hour, including the awkward ones. Seven realistic names, and booking sets out what the first message needs in it.

West across the junction is Harmondsworth, which kept its green and its barn. East is Harlington and its churchyard. North is West Drayton, the nearest town with a platform and a late table. The northern hotel row runs along the boundary below the lane, and the central pair of terminals is five minutes away by road.