He took several minutes to get his bearings, imagining himself to be his father, and seeing the world the way he would have done. Darkus noted a modest fruit stall, a zebra crossing, several mums pushing prams, a row of shops and a nearby supermarket. To his right was the entrance to Hampstead Heath itself. The huge, ancient park was located on a high ridge overlooking central London. The only guide was a small welcome map displaying an extensive jigsaw of shapes and paths. The eight-hundred-acre wilderness featured dense woodland, numerous parks and meadows, several ponds and a palatial estate called Kenwood House – not to mention the legions of devoted Londoners, joggers, hikers and dog walkers who protected their rural oasis with pride. According to his research, ‘The Heath’, as it had become known, dated back well over a thousand years to the reign of King Ethelred the Unready, and was the property of various monarchs and their cronies, before being handed back to the general public in the mid-twentieth century.
