Milena, companion in Heathrow Terminals 2 and 3

Height first: 175 cm, and she wears it without apology, in flat shoes as often as not because she walks further at this airport than anyone expects to. Milena is curvy; her black hair is long and straight, and her brown eyes stay on you while she is thinking. Mid twenties. South Kensington is home and the Piccadilly line runs from her door to the central terminals in about fifty minutes, which she has spent on many evenings reading rather than working.

She is thoughtful and a little dry. Not the loudest person in a room and entirely uninterested in becoming it. Her English is fluent and she chooses her words, which means a conversation with her tends to go somewhere rather than circling. She notices when a guest is running on adrenaline and slows the evening down accordingly, usually without saying that is what she is doing.

Her favourite thing on this side of the airport is not a hotel at all. The Three Magpies sits on the Bath Road, an old pub with the northern runway behind the fence, and if an hour of daylight is left she will suggest going there first: a drink outside, aircraft on final approach every ninety seconds, a proper sense of where you have actually landed. Then back to the central terminal hotels, five minutes away, for the rest of the evening.

The middle of the airport is written up on Heathrow Terminals 2 and 3. Give the desk a building and an hour, and mention if you want that drink outside first, because it needs daylight. Booking does the rest.

She likes an evening with a beginning, which at this airport usually means getting outside for half an hour before the light goes. The runway fence on the Bath Road is the best free entertainment in west London and she is unembarrassed about enjoying it. Twenty minutes of that and the flight you have just stepped off starts to feel like something that happened to someone else.

Then the hotel, and she takes it slowly. Dinner if the kitchen is still open, a drink if it is not, and a long stretch of conversation that she steers gently towards whatever you actually want to talk about. She is good at the end of an evening, unhurried and warm, and she never leaves a room feeling like an appointment has concluded.