“As Strike approached Henlys Corner on the North Circular Road the following afternoon, he saw, with a muttered oath, that traffic ahead had come to a halt. The junction, which was a notorious hotspot for congestion, had supposedly been improved earlier that year.” (Lethal White, Chapter 56)
After Billy Knight had been found and was undergoing treatment in a psychiatric hospital somewhere in north London, Strike is granted an interview and opts to drive rather than take the Tube.
“He had wondered whether it might be wiser to take the Tube north, but the psychiatric hospital lay a good mile from the nearest station, and the BMW was marginally easier on his still sore leg.” (Lethal White, Chapter 56)
North Circular Road wraps around Central London and is about 25 miles long.
Henlys Corner is a road junction where the A1 meets North Circular Road. The photo below shows about where Strike would have been stuck in traffic. You can read more about the supposed 2011 improvements here.
It took Strike another 20 minutes to reach the hospital where Billy Knight was admitted. We don’t know the exact name of the hospital, but it’s described as looking like “the bastard offspring of a gingerbread palace and a gothic prison. A Victorian stonemason had carved the word ‘Sanatorium’ into the dirty redbrick arch over the double doorway.” (Lethal White, Chapter 56)
Find Henlys Corner on the map below