On a Monday afternoon in July nineteen ninety-three, lunch was waiting inside a small farmhouse in South Wales. Potatoes had been prepared and left in a pan on the cooker. A milk jug and sugar bowl sat nearby, and among the ordinary crockery was a cup and saucer from a set normally reserved for visitors. Everything suggested that Harry and Megan Tooze had been interrupted.

There was no overturned furniture, no broken window, no sign that anyone had forced their way inside. Money and valuables had not been taken, and the front door was unlocked. Outside, the farm appeared quiet. It stood beyond the village of Llanharry, surrounded by fields and narrow lanes, and anyone passing at a distance would have seen nothing unusual. Anyone listening might have heard birds, machinery, livestock, or the occasional crack of Harry's shotgun as he protected his vegetables from rabbits.