People disappear all the time; bank managers, teachers and doctors along with feckless runaways. And occasionally they reappear: a prison officer presumed to have drowned on a canoeing trip five years ago resurfaced on Saturday. Perhaps John Darwin suffered amnesia; perhaps he took the opportunity of being thought dead to compose a new life.

When “respectable” people vanish, it is invariably deemed out of character. If it were not, bank managers and doctors would dematerialise regularly. Such instances remain rare; tragically, some turn out to have taken their own lives, been victims of crime or accident.

But some do, suddenly, want to walk away from their old lives, perhaps to find liberation from family responsibilities, stressful jobs and a mortgage. These individuals may be more numerous than we think; there are even books out there on the subject. Among them is How to Cover Your Tracks Without Changing your Identity: How to Disappear Until You WANT to be Found, by B. Wilson.

Here is a reader’s review: “Following Wilson’s instructions you really can virtually fall off the face of the Earth . . .” It also tells you how to ease yourself back into your former life – I suspect that, sadly, many have no intention of reading that chapter.

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