About halfway along the Uxbridge Road was a tatty Chinese takeaway called the Bamboo Garden. It was owned by an émigré from Hong Kong, called Teddy Lim, and it was mostly staffed by members of his family. Above the takeaway was a deceptively spacious flat that Mr Lim rented out for a surprisingly low monthly rent.
His tenant was a gentleman called Alistair Scanlon, who had lived there for years. Alistair - or Al, as everyone knew him - was a newspaper journalist. Back in the 90s, he'd worked in China as a correspondent for one of the major national dailies. While he was there, he reported on the plight of a number of political dissidents, persecuted by the Chinese state. He kept a light shining on their story, forcing the communist government to justify and defend its actions. Eventually,
