Four hours and a table, on a road with better kitchens than it admits

Three or four hotels on the Bath Road are genuinely handsome and the rest are beds near a runway; the desk will tell you which is which before you book a room rather than after. One of the strip hotels hides a covered courtyard in the middle of it, warm in winter and quiet by nine, which is a strange and very pleasant thing to find behind that frontage.

North of the road the picture changes. The hotel on Stockley Road at West Drayton sits back from the noise with fields starting where the car park ends, and it keeps a proper dining room rather than a counter beside the lobby.

A drink first, somewhere downstairs, for half an hour or so. That part matters more than it sounds: it is where a guest who has been travelling since dawn stops performing and starts talking, and every one of these women can tell the moment it happens.

Dinner runs long because there is no reason for it not to. Afterwards there is a walk if the weather allows, or coffee somewhere quieter, or the rest of the booking upstairs. Nobody looks at a clock in front of you, and when the time is up she says so, thanks you properly and goes without the awkward shuffle that spoils so many good evenings.

Kitchens out here close earlier than in town and the good ones fill with crew and conference guests from about eight. If you are landing in the evening, tell Hester the flight rather than a time and she will work the table back from it. If you are flying at dawn she will suggest starting early instead, so the last hour is restful and your alarm is not a punishment.

£900 is her time and her company for four hours, and her journey out and back. It does not cover the meal, which goes on your own bill at the table exactly as it would on any other night. Her fee is handed to her in person when she arrives, in pounds, and nothing goes near your hotel bill.

If four hours turns out to be short, say so while the time is still running; the next rung up is a full night at £1,800.

Michelle is the obvious first answer on the strip: she picks the bar herself, she is quick and funny, and she makes a hotel restaurant feel like a decision rather than a default. Tiffany starts at eight, the hour the lobbies change character, which suits a late table. Milena takes charge of the small decisions in the first five minutes, which most guests find an enormous relief, then slows right down in the second hour.

Margo knows exactly which kitchens close when and can hold an evening together on conversation alone. Bianka is the warmest of the five and will ask after your mother and bring the answer back an hour later. Thea would rather build the night around whatever is on at the theatre in Hayes and eat afterwards. Every other name is in the hall.

Say in your first message whether you want her to book the table or whether you have done it. Either is fine. She knows which rooms take a reservation seriously and which will simply seat you, and she is honest about the one hotel out here where the menu photograph is doing a great deal of work. The booking page has the rest of the sequence.