Canary Wharf hotel visits in E14, timed to the minute the floors go dark

18:52. The call runs over, as calls do. You send Philippa three lines on WhatsApp: the hotel, the start time, two hours. 18:58. Back comes a name, the fee of £500 and one question about the room. 19:06. The check is done, once and for good: the name on the reservation, the hotel, the room.

19:48. She comes in through the river entrance of Canary Riverside Plaza in a dark dress that would pass at any table on the estate, and the concierge sees a guest meeting a guest. 20:05. A table on the water at Wood Wharf while the newest towers are still switching on. 21:40. Coffee, then the walk back to Westferry Circus, and the evening closes at the minute you agreed in writing.

Canary Riverside Plaza stands on the Thames at Westferry Circus, the calmest of the five, with rooms that look across the river to Rotherhithe. The London Marriott Hotel Canary Wharf rises beside the Georgian sugar warehouses of West India Quay, so an evening there can start among old brick and end high above the quay. Tribe London Canary Wharf is the newcomer, design-led, with a lobby bar that fills straight after work.

Across the dock at South Quay stand the Hilton London Canary Wharf and, a few doors along Marsh Wall, the Novotel London Canary Wharf, both a short walk over the footbridge from Canada Square. They appear on this page as addresses, because that is where our guests stay; not one of them is a partner of ours. Serviced apartments and private flats on the estate are handled exactly like hotel rooms.

Mostly people who have just finished work and have no wish to cross London to unwind. Traders at the end of a volatile session. Lawyers on the estate for a week of completion meetings. Directors visiting from an overseas office, jet-lagged, in a suite they will hardly see by daylight. Residents too, in the towers along the river and around Wood Wharf, who would rather host at home than sit in a restaurant.

What they want is simple enough to write down. A companion at ease at a business-casual table, who knows a working dinner from a private one, and who arrives on the minute. The Wharf rewards punctuality more than anywhere else we cover, and we plan for it.

Canary Wharf station, where the Jubilee line, the Elizabeth line and the DLR meet beneath the estate, is two minutes' walk from the central squares. Heron Quays on the DLR is four minutes from the south side, and West India Quay is six from the warehouses. Most of our companions ride the Elizabeth line east from the West End, which puts Bond Street or Tottenham Court Road around a quarter of an hour away.

From confirmation, allow up to an hour. Early in the evening the train is quickest; after eleven, a car along The Highway and through the Limehouse Link usually wins, and we choose whichever gets her to your door on time. If she is running more than a few minutes behind the time in writing, Philippa tells you before you notice.

Lengths run from one hour at £250 to ten hours overnight at £1,800. Every length and its figure sits on rates, and the sequence from first message to knock is on booking.

Milena comes over from South Kensington for steak beside the water at Wood Wharf. Angelika rides in from Mayfair and plans her evenings around the live music at Cabot Place. Tiffany, a short hop from Soho, likes champagne at a hotel bar while the towers empty, and Liana, from Marylebone, prefers the hush of the roof garden above the station. Thea makes the trip from South Kensington for a counter seat by the grill. Every one of the twenty-eight is on the Tonight page.

Limehouse is one DLR stop west, quieter and mostly residential. The towers of South Quay and the Isle of Dogs begin across the footbridge. ExCeL and the Royal Docks are one Elizabeth line stop east at Custom House, and Stratford is a straight Jubilee line run to the north-east. For every district in the postcode on one page, open the E14 guide.