Thea, companion in Heathrow Terminal 4

Caramel blonde, green eyed, and noticeably calm in a place where everybody else is checking a screen. Thea is curvy, 165 cm, and dresses with the simplicity of someone who has worked out what suits her and stopped experimenting. Late twenties. South Kensington is home, and Terminal 4 is roughly fifty minutes away by road at the hour she usually travels, which is later than most people would consider reasonable.

She is warm without being effusive and has a steadiness that people remember afterwards. She speaks English at an unhurried pace, and asks the sort of question that makes a guest realise he has not actually spoken to anyone properly in three days. She is especially good with long haul arrivals, the ones who have crossed too many time zones to know whether they are hungry or exhausted.

The plain hotel near Terminal 4 is her practical recommendation for this side of the runway: plain, comfortable, and a few minutes from the terminal building, which at one in the morning is worth more than a chandelier. She is honest about the rest of Terminal 4. The station closes early, there is no service through the night, and the only way out after that is a car around the southern perimeter, so the evening is planned to stay where it is.

The southern terminal has its own page at Heathrow Terminal 4. If you are still travelling, give the desk the flight number and she will move with the schedule. Booking explains how the late ones are arranged.

Long haul arrivals need a particular kind of evening and she has it down. Nothing demanding in the first half hour: a drink, a shower if you have not had one, and a conversation that does not require you to remember anything. She has seen enough people step off a twelve hour flight to know that the first twenty minutes are not the measure of anybody.

After that the night opens up. Terminal 4 goes quiet earlier than the rest of the airport and the hotel corridors are silent by midnight, which makes an unhurried evening genuinely possible. She stays for the whole booking rather than the clock, and if your onward flight leaves in the morning she will make sure you sleep before it rather than after.