Out past midnight: a companion for the long half of the night

Telling the desk where the night starts

Give the first address and the hour, and say whether you want her to meet you there or come to the hotel first. Both work. A companion arriving at the hotel gives you twenty minutes before anything begins, which most guests find sets the night up better than being introduced across a crowded bar.

Doors, and who gets through them

Several of the women on this list are known in their own districts and can get a table where a stranger would be turned away, which is worth more after eleven than any amount of planning. If a particular room is the whole point of the evening, name it when you book and Cordelia will tell you honestly whether it can be arranged or not.

Walking, which is faster than you think

After a certain hour the taxi is the slow option in most of central London. Theatre streets close, ranks queue, and a companion crossing three blocks on foot beats a car by a clear margin. The women who do these evenings dress for it, in shoes chosen for pavements rather than for a lobby photograph, and the desk plans the route on that basis.

How the four hours usually fall

Half past nine, the first drink. Half past ten, somewhere with more going on. Midnight, the late table or the room with music in it. Two o'clock, the walk back through streets that belong to nobody. That is the common shape and it bends easily. Say what you actually want and the confirmation is written to it rather than to a template.

Adding an hour from wherever you are standing is usually possible. Message Cordelia and she will answer within minutes, and the extra time is charged at the next rung of the same ladder rather than at some figure conjured up at one in the morning.

Four names who are good late

Molly works the east most nights and is warm within a minute of meeting anyone. Luna wants the high room at dusk and the walk to the bridge afterwards, and she is delighted when it rains. Roxi takes theatre nights and weekends and walks home singing. Cindy lives five minutes from the King's Road and can often be placed the same evening.

Getting home, and the fifteen minutes

The booking ends where the confirmation says it ends, which is usually your door, and her own journey home is her business and already inside the figure. She waits fifteen minutes past the agreed start if you are held up somewhere, and past that the desk would rather write a new booking than quietly hand you a shorter one at the same price.

The parts of London that stay awake

Not many, and knowing which is most of the skill. The east keeps going longest and cares least what anyone is wearing. The square mile empties at seven and then gives you the biggest streets in the city almost to yourselves, which is a strange pleasure but a real one. The theatre end fills all at once at a quarter to eleven and then thins to nothing within the hour.

The desk plans around those facts rather than around a list of venues, because venues close and districts do not. If you name a room you want and it has shut down since you were last in London, Cordelia will say so and offer two others on the same street instead of letting you find out at midnight.

What the night costs, and what it does not

Four hours is £900 at two in the morning exactly as it is at seven in the evening. Nothing is added for the hour, the day or the district, and the whole ladder is printed on the rates page. Bars, tickets and a shared taxi are yours, as they would be on any night out.

Her fee reaches her in person at the start of the evening, before the first drink, and from then on the evening is about the next address on the route rather than about the arrangement.