Almost as if reading her thoughts, Li went on, “Of course, this is not just a Chinese philosophy. It has expression in much Western thinking. ‘No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main . . .’”

Almost automatically, Margaret recalled the lines from her classes in English Lit. “‘Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.’”

“Of course, John Donne was writing in seventeenth-century England,” Li said. “He no doubt drew his inspiration from much older Chinese philosophies.”

Margaret could barely conceal her amazement. “They didn’t teach you John Donne at the University of Public Security.”

Li laughed at the idea. “No.”

“At school?”

He shook his head. “My Uncle Yifu. He was educated at the American University in Beijing before the communists came to power in ’49. He was offered the chance to do a post-graduate course at Cambridge, in England. But he chose to stay and help build the new China.” A shadow passed almost imperceptibly across his face. “You might say that my uncle was the embodiment of the philosophy of Taoism.”

“And how did he help to build ‘the new China’?” Margaret was sceptical.

But Li didn’t notice. His mind was transported to another place, another time. “He became a policeman.”

“What?”

“He was considered to be an ‘intellectual.’ And in those days this was not a good thing to be. Free thinkers were dangerous. So he volunteered to join the police force and go to Tibet.”

Margaret blew a jet of air through pursed lips. “That’s a bit of a leap. From Cambridge post-grad to Tibetan cop.”

Li was philosophical. “It was how the world turned then. He and his wife walked to Tibet from their home in Sichuan.”

“Walked!” Margaret was incredulous.

“There were very few roads in those days over the mountains to the roof of the world. It took them three months.”

This seemed extraordinary to Margaret. The only thing with which she could equate it was the brave trek west across the United States made by pioneers in the early nineteenth century. And yet this had been less than fifty years ago.

“They brought him back to Beijing in 1960,” Li said. “By the time he retired five years ago, he had become a Senior Commissioner, and was head of the Beijing Municipal Police. I have been staying with him in his apartment since I came here to the Public Security University.”