Nicholas Coleridge

Streetsmart

1999. Orion, 2000.

They arrived at the park and drove round the inner circle in the direction of the mosque...A few solitary joggers pounded their way round the perimeter, or were engaged in elaborate stretching exercises against the railings. In a windblown playground, children dangled from a climbing frame, while their parents stamped their boots and slapped their arms to keep warm, and wondered how much longer they must stick it out before going home

Reporter Max Thompson is investigating a Lebanese arms dealer who lives in Regent Village, 'an enclave of enormous detached mansions which had been put up by a property company in the early 'nineties...a couple of hundred yards beyond the Royal College of Obstetricians.' (This would seem to put it in the middle of Sussex Place - where were the Friends of Regent's Park when we needed them?)

They were pulling out of the car park when they heard a loud beating noise from the direction of Regent Village, and a helicopter slowly ascended from behind the wall of one of the houses, tilted over the trees, and headed off above the treetops

An altercation with two security guards makes a quick departure advisable.