Cassandra

In her own hours

A low voice, used sparingly, and the sense that she has already noticed three things about the room you have not. Amsterdammer now, by a year of habit.

A slight formality in the English fits the rooms she tends to be in, and the Greek comes out only on the telephone at odd hours. Attention to detail with her is easy to miss until you notice the phone turned face down, the curtain drawn, the second lamp switched off. Anywhere inside the ring at any hour, and she arrives looking like a woman returning to her own floor. Ninety minutes is the booking she recommends; the hour, she will tell you, is perfectly fine, only a little short for the unhurried pace she likes to keep.

Cassandra decides which bookings she takes and may decline any of them; she sets the limits for what a session includes, says what they are, and may end a visit at any point, as the terms set out.