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other and having no connections other than living in Devon.
    And they had all gone missing on the longest day of the year.
    Mandy Glastone had been the first. Thirty-four and recently married, no children, a nurse by profession, she had vanished on the twenty-first June 2006. Her husband had arrived home to find the cake on the kitchen table, along with his wife’s handbag containing car keys, house keys and mobile phone. Nobody on Devon Road in Salcombe, quiet in a summer rainstorm, had seen or heard anything.
    Phil Glastone had been the main suspect, a few years older than his wife and previously married to a woman who claimed she’d received more than the occasional beating from her husband. A claim the police saw no reason to disbelieve. Glastone was questioned, investigated, questioned again. He denied having anything to do with his wife’s disappearance.
    When some two weeks later a fisherman came across Mandy Glastone’s headless and mutilated body in a river high on Dartmoor, Mr Glastone was arrested on suspicion of murder. Glastone’s car was impounded and a forensic team went over every inch. Hairs from Mandy’s head were found in the boot, but that didn’t prove a thing.
    DCI Derek Walsh, the SIO at the time, hadn’t been entirely happy with the case, specifically the marks on the body. A criss-cross of cuts overlaid with spirals and other shapes. River creatures had been at the corpse, but the cuts hadn’t been made by them. As far as the pathologist could tell the woman hadn’t been beaten and cause of death couldn’t be determined. Were the marks a sign of some kind of ritual killing? Was the date significant, the murder something to do with pagans, the summer solstice, mumbo-jumbo and witchcraft? Then there was the clay, a lump found down in her throat below the point at which her head had been severed, the purpose of the material not clear.
    With no further evidence and the complications of the cake and the cuts, the CPS decided charging their suspect was a step too far. ‘No evidence, no motive’ they’d told the team and Phil Glastone had walked free.
    Twelve months later, June the twenty-first again, a twenty-five-year-old woman disappeared after having spent the evening in her local pub. Single, employed as a manager in a shoe shop and living in a rented flat in Paignton, Sue Kendle was never seen again. When friends called round the next day to collect her for a prearranged outing they became worried when she didn’t answer the door. Two police officers gained entry and found signs of a struggle: furniture tipped over, a picture frame smashed, the carpet in the hallway rucked up. And in the kitchen a Victoria sponge with seven candles on it, a slice missing, crumbs on the table.
    Glastone was brought in once more. Under intense questioning he broke down and admitted beating Mandy, but denied killing her. The interrogation team pushed hard but it turned out that this time he had been away on business in Switzerland; his alibi appeared to be cast-iron. He was released without charge.
    No body this time either and despite ongoing searches, Sue Kendle was never found. With no leads, the investigation went nowhere.
    Twenty-first June 2008. Thirty-nine-year-old Heidi Luckmann lucked out. She had risen early and driven her car to Burrator Reservoir from her home in Horrabridge, a village between Plymouth and Tavistock. A couple in the car park at the eastern end of the reservoir remembered the rather tatty red Vauxhall Corsa and the attractive woman with the Border Collie. As they geared up for their walk – stout boots for the moor and waterproofs against the summer drizzle – the dog had bounded across for a chat, Heidi coming over and apologising, the couple not minding one bit.
    When they returned four hours later they noticed the dog lying by the side of Heidi’s car, waiting for his mistress.
    The Dartmoor Rescue Group and a search helicopter scoured the surrounds of the reservoir and the