You Better Believe There’s More to This Story

Else how to explain this Phoenix-like tale?

For more than five years he had been missing, presumed dead, after last

being seen paddling his red kayak out into the North Sea in front of

the home he shared with his wife.

Then John Darwin, 57, walked in to

London’s West End police station on Saturday afternoon and told the

desk sergeant: “I think I am a missing person.” The father of two gave

only his name, date of birth and address and said he had no idea where

he had been since disappearing on a Thursday morning in March 2002.

Yesterday his family, friends and police were trying to unravel the

extraordinary mystery of what appeared to be a Reginald Perrin-style

disappearance. Darwin’s sons, Mark and Anthony, picked him up from the

police station and took him to an unknown location. What prompted

Darwin to come forward is unclear.

And it may not be clear for quite some time, but with his wife in Panama – something that only happened a few weeks earlier – and rumors that a John Darwin applied for a credit card a year or so ago from the same address he came back to makes my bullshit detector go off so much the frequency is beyond human hearing.