Thanks to the bizarre claims of an eccentric Russian psychic, Christmas 1990 was a bit of a strange one for Paul Cranage.

Eighteen months earlier, Mr. Cranage had led the Marine Police investigation after diver Mikhail Falin disappeared in Bermuda's waters when a deep sea expedition went wrong.

Mr. Falin's body was never found but, given that he'd vanished under 120 feet of choppy water, the search team thought they were safe to write the case off as a tragic fatal accident.

What nobody expected was the unusual intervention of Russian celebrity fortune-teller Victor Balashov and his unlikely story which gave Mr. Falin's family false hope.

Mr. Balashov's tale was that Mr. Falin wasn't dead at all — he was living a new life as a Robinson Crusoe character on a beach.

He had heroically swam to shore, lost his memory, grown a beard and long hair and moved into a Somerset beach home surrounded by palm trees, said Mr. Balashov.

Not sure whether to believe him or not, Mr. Falin's wife Inna Falina and father Vitali Falin joined the psychic on a trip to Bermuda to see if they could find the diver. They arrived on the Island on December 21, 1990.

Their three-week search was predictably fruitless, with Police pointing out a stranger speaking a foreign language would not have gone unnoticed by Somerset residents.

But the unusual nature of the investigation led to Mr. Cranage and his wife forming a long-lasting friendship with the Falin family — and they have just returned from a reunion in France, where they swopped life stories and shared memories of the tragedy and the antics of Mr. Balashov.

Mrs. Falina told Mr. Cranage that she finally gave up hope at the end of her Bermuda trip, ended up marrying an Italian, moving to England and working in real estate.

Twenty years may now have passed since the investigation, but Mr. Cranage can still recall his difficulties explaining the truth to the Russians as if it were yesterday.

"This is what I was up against," the Englishman tells The Royal Gazette.

He then launches into an impersonation of Mr. Balashov, shutting his eyes and slowly whirling his hands in the air before drawing a picture of a palm tree on a piece of paper.

"I can feel it! It's an island! It's a palm tree!" says Mr. Cranage doing his impression of Mr. Balashov.

Reverting back to his own Yorkshire accent, Mr. Cranage continues: "I'm thinking: 'Where's this cuckoo come from?' He's painting this picture that he's living the life like Robinson Crusoe and he's got amnesia or something.

"We took him to Scaur Hill and your boy's going: 'He's here! Victor can feel things!' "I'm there shouting: 'Mikhail! Mikhail!' and I'm saying: 'There's no answer, he's dead, he's gone.' He would then put on his sad face; sad old Victor.

"He was a comic. I used to say to the missus, he's like a lovable rogue.

"I don't know if they believed him. Put it this way, they wanted to believe him. It's like everything else, unless you show me a body he's not dead."

The former sergeant, who was with the Marine Police for 17 years and now works as a property manager, says the case took its toll.

"It was eerie," he says. "I used to come home at night and I would say to my missus: 'This is driving me crazy. I couldn't ... at least it appeared I couldn't get through to them."

Mr. Cranage says it's possible the trip was done for Russian television, but there's also a chance Mr. Balashov made the whole thing up to get himself a free holiday in the sun.

"He must have thought it was his ticket for a trip round the globe," he says. "I used to say he's only here for the beer."

On Christmas Eve 1990, The Royal Gazette reported that the Russian contingent had arrived on the Island with no return tickets, no entry visas to get them back into the US and very little money.

At least part of that report turned out to be about as far wrong as it's possible for a newspaper article to be.

Noting the trio were living lavishly during their stay at Grotto Bay, Mr. Cranage told them he was concerned at the bill they were running up and asked who was going to pay for it all.

He recalls: "The father says: 'It's not a problem. We have money.' "He tootles off and comes back with $100 bills that would choke a donkey. He had $40,000 cash in his room."

That money was put in the Grotto Bay safe for the remainder of their visit.

This month's reunion was organised by Mr. Falin's daughter Katia Falina, who was a baby when her father disappeared and is now living in France.

"Katia said to me the family had never forgotten how generous people were in Bermuda and they would love to come back one day to visit," says Mr. Cranage.

"She kept a teddy bear someone gave her and she still travels everywhere with it.

"I asked Inna whether she had given up hope and she said as much as she wanted him to walk through the door, she realised he wasn't going to come.

"She decided she had to do something with her life and went to Italy, where she met her future husband. Then she went to England.

"If it hadn't been for this, who knows what she would be doing. She would probably have met another Russian."