When the residents of Haytor Vale first heard police sirens on Thursday morning they assumed there had been an accident on the moors.
Surrounded by the imposing granite outcrops of Haytor and Hound Tor, scene of the haunting Sir Arthur Conan Doyle crime novel The Hound of the Baskervilles, villagers are far more accustomed to the warning signs that Dartmoor Search and Rescue are passing through than those of armed police vans.