Vanessa, companion in Bath Road

Sandy brown with a balayage that catches whatever light a hotel corridor can offer, hazel eyes, and a long clean line to her. Vanessa is 173 cm and slim. Mid twenties. Paddington is home, which puts her a fast train from the central terminals and a short car from anywhere on the northern perimeter, and she is one of the few who will say honestly which of those is quicker at a given hour.

She is poised without being remote. Quietly funny, interested in the mechanics of other people's jobs, and completely unfazed by a guest who arrives grey with tiredness and apologetic about it. Her English is clear and unhurried. She is good at the first hour of an evening, when a stranger has to become company, and she does it without any of the usual scripts.

The big practical building at the end of Sipson Way is her example of a hotel that is honest about what it is and never pretends otherwise, ten minutes from the central terminals and thirty seconds from the motorway. She rates it for the things that matter out here, a quick arrival and a quiet corridor. The Bath Road strip is two minutes away for anything the hotel itself cannot provide, which after nine is not very much.

The whole northern perimeter is mapped on Bath Road. Name the building, the evening and the time, and pass on your room number when you have one rather than before. Rates lists the durations.

She treats the first hour as the real work of the evening and everything after it as the reward. A drink, unhurried, with the questions going in her direction as often as yours. By the time the second drink arrives the day you have had has been properly emptied out and the hotel has stopped feeling like a waiting room.

After that she is content to stay put. These hotels are built for arrivals and departures, so the kitchen closes early and the bar empties by eleven, which she plans around rather than complains about. Order at nine, she says, and keep the rest of the night for itself. She is warm, unhurried and entirely comfortable with a long evening that goes nowhere at all.