Stacy, companion in Heathrow Terminal 5

Tall enough that she has learned to stand still rather than tower, Stacy is slim and 176 cm, her hair a near-black brown worn long, her eyes brown. Early twenties. Chelsea is home and she is candid that the western edge of the airport took some learning: the names of the hotels out here bear only a loose relationship to the terminals they claim, and the map is no help at all after dark. She has it straight now and uses it.

Her manner is lighter than her looks suggest. She is playful, quick to find the absurd side of a delayed evening, and entirely without the frost that people expect from someone her height. She speaks English quickly, and has a habit of asking the second question where most people stop at the first. She is good with guests who are wound up from a long day of travel and cannot yet sit still.

Her favourite detail on this side of the airport is the Ostrich Inn at Colnbrook, a genuinely ancient coaching inn on the old high street, a ten minute drive beyond Terminal 5, and the sort of building that makes the business parks around it look very temporary. If the evening starts early she will take you there for one drink before dinner. If it starts late, she skips it and comes straight to the hotel, which out here is usually the sensible call.

Terminal 5 and the ground behind it are described on Heathrow Terminal 5. Tell the desk the exact hotel name and your hour, and she will plan the drive around the M4 rather than hoping. Rates sets out the durations.

There is an hour on this side of the airport, roughly between seven and eight, when the roads clear and everything gets easier. She aims for it. An early start means there is time for a drink somewhere with a history before the evening settles into the hotel, and she thinks that one detail is what separates a night out here from a night in a departure lounge.

The rest is straightforward and unhurried. Dinner if the kitchen is still awake, the room if it is not, and a long stretch of conversation that goes somewhere unexpected about halfway through. She is not a clock watcher. If you are flying from Terminal 5 in the morning she will check where the hotel bus goes from, because half the guests out here get that wrong.