Rosa, companion in Heathrow

Rosa is curvy and 160 cm, with long curly chestnut brown hair that does as it likes whatever the weather, and brown eyes that give her away every time she is amused. Mid twenties. Marylebone is home. She dresses simply and well, which out here is the right instinct: a hotel on the perimeter is not a place for a statement, and she would rather look like the best thing in an ordinary lobby than like someone who has taken a wrong turning.

Cheerful is the word, though it undersells her. She is quick, she is affectionate in manner, and she has the knack of making a functional room feel like somewhere you chose. She talks in English, and keeps a conversation moving without ever letting it feel like effort. For a guest with a few hours between flights and no energy for anything complicated, she is close to ideal.

The small one on the Bath Road is the kind of place she likes to be honest about. It is a practical hotel: small rooms, a reliable bar, a location right on the perimeter with the central terminals five minutes away. Nobody is there for the architecture. What it does offer is a fast check in, a quiet corridor and a shuttle that actually turns up, and an evening in it is exactly as good as the company you have arranged.

The airport as a whole is set out on Heathrow. Send the desk the hotel and the hour, or the flight number if you have not landed yet, and she will be there when you are. Booking explains the timings.

A few hours is a real booking, not a compromise, and she treats it that way. She arrives with the evening already decided: a drink, the story of your flight, and then the part of the night you actually came for. Nothing about it is rushed, because three hours handled well is longer than most people think.

She is good at the small things that make a plain hotel room bearable. The bad overhead light goes off, the curtains get closed properly, the television stays dark. She asks whether you have eaten and means it. By the time she leaves you are ready to sleep rather than wound up, which for a guest with an onward flight is the whole point of the evening.