Tina, companion in Heathrow

Espresso brown hair, long, with brown eyes that go straight to the point. Tina is 158 cm with an athletic build, with the energy of someone who does something physical most mornings and is not remotely tired by nine at night. Mid twenties. Covent Garden is home. She is used to the run out here and treats a changed plan as an ordinary part of the job rather than a crisis to be discussed.

Her company is bright and uncomplicated. She talks, she listens, she notices when a conversation has run its course, and she is good with a guest whose day has gone wrong in four separate ways. There is nothing stiff about the English she works in. Nothing about her is stiff, and she makes the first ten minutes feel like the middle of an evening rather than the start of one.

For a quieter night she suggests the hotel out at Cherry Lane, which is a few minutes beyond the central terminals and considerably calmer than the buildings on the main road. It is not a walk, it is a short drive, and she says so plainly. In return you get a hotel where the corridors are silent by eleven and nobody is dragging a case past your door at six in the morning.

Every terminal here has its own page under Heathrow. Give the desk your hotel, the hour and a flight number if you have not landed, and she will be there when you get to the room. Booking explains the rest.

She is a good choice for a night that has already been rearranged twice. Nothing about a delay bothers her, and she will simply move the whole evening rather than trimming it at both ends. That flexibility is the thing regular travellers out here value most, because an airport schedule is a suggestion rather than a fact.

Once she arrives it slows down immediately. A drink, the day taken apart, shoes off, the light down to one lamp. She is affectionate and easy and she does not perform. If you have an early start she will tell you when to stop talking, which is a kindness at that hour, and she leaves you in a state where sleep is actually possible.