Bianka, companion in Bath Road

The hotels along the Bath Road all look identical from the back of a car at midnight, and Bianka can tell them apart by the carpet in the lobby. She is 165 cm and curvy, her long light brown hair sun-kissed at the ends by a summer somewhere warmer than this, her hazel eyes on you while you are still apologising for the delay. Early twenties. Her own address is in Knightsbridge, although she spends more evenings on this stretch of the A4 than she does anywhere within sight of a park.

Warm first, funny second. She asks about the flight because she genuinely wants to know how many hours you spent sitting still, and she takes your jacket and your complaints in one movement. English is her working language, unhurried, full of the kind of questions that make a ruined travel day sound almost worth the retelling. She is good with people who are too tired to be good company, which at this end of the evening is nearly everybody.

Her favourite building on the strip is TW6 2AQ, partly for the staircase and partly because it sits far enough back from the runway to go quiet after eleven. It is a five minute drive from the central terminals and a much longer walk than the map admits, so she comes by car and meets you where the light is kind. If dinner is happening in the hotel she will have read the menu before she gets there, and she will have an opinion about the fish.

What she knows about this hotel row is collected on Bath Road. Name your hotel and an hour, or send a flight number if you are still above the Channel, and the desk will confirm. The ladder on rates reads the same whichever building it turns out to be.

The strip has a rhythm and she works with it. Before nine the hotel bars are full of crews and conference badges, so she suggests eating first and drinking later, when the lobby empties and the staff stop rushing. She is easy about where: a table downstairs, a tray upstairs, or nothing at all if you ate on the plane and want to talk instead.

Once the noise goes, the Bath Road is oddly restful. The planes are overhead until about eleven and then the sky closes and you can hear the traffic on the A4 instead. She likes that hour, and she will happily spend it on the sofa with her shoes off, asking what you are actually here to do and whether anyone is meeting you tomorrow.