Michelle, companion in Central London

Aldwych at half past nine is one of the better sights in the middle of London and Michelle will make you look at it. She is 173 cm and curvy, dark brown hair long and straight, brown eyes. At 27 she is confident without visible effort and dresses with a slight formality that works everywhere between Holborn and Trafalgar Square.

Fluent English and a low, unhurried delivery. She is a natural host, the person who notices your glass before the waiter does, and she is good at the specific job of making a stranger feel like an old acquaintance inside ten minutes. She goes to the theatre constantly, cooks for friends on Sundays, and holds strong views about hotel breakfasts which she will share at length. She is also the best name here to put in front of somebody you need to impress, because she makes an evening look effortless and lets you take the credit for it.

Her central evening is built around the Delaunay on Aldwych, which she rates for the hour before a show and the hour after one. The Strand hotels are three minutes on foot, Covent Garden six, the Kingsway ones about five. Michelle lives in Chelsea, twenty five minutes across at that time of night, and she books her car before she answers the desk so that the arrival time you are given is the real one. She knows which Strand hotels have a bar worth sitting in afterwards and which do not.

She is set out on the Central London page. Costs per duration appear under rates. A booking message carrying your hotel and start time gets a firm arrival back.

Michelle confirms her car before the desk confirms her hour, so the arrival time is accurate to within a few minutes. Give Romilly the hotel and the start time you want.

Every figure she works to is on the board of rates, and the rest is one message away.

Michelle runs an evening the way good front of house runs a room: invisibly. She arrives, reads the mood, and adjusts. If you want to talk she will talk; if you want to be quiet she will make the quiet comfortable rather than awkward. A table at the Delaunay at half past eight, a long second course and a conversation that finds its subject by the time the plates go, is the version she would choose.

Afterwards the middle of London is walkable in a way most people forget. Waterloo Bridge at night, the Strand empty, the lit windows of the hotels. She will do the walk if you want it and skip it without complaint if you do not. The last part of the booking is usually the quietest and, by most accounts, the best of it.