Taffy and Claire find an old lady on the street with a bird cage and a suitcase. She has run away from a home and later dies in the canteen. Tosh and Jim stop and search a cat burglar who uses his socks to avoid leaving fingerprints. Dashwood and Viv try to catch, unsuccessfully, 2 pickpockets until Sgt. Peters gives them a hint.

June sees a boy being bullied at a playground. On investigation she finds a lunch box with packets in it as well as a notebook with a list of names and some drawings. The list is of drugs but the prices are kids prices and the packets hold grass clippings and flour - almost like the children are playing shop. She goes to the local school to see if she can get some names. Dashwood's transfer has been turned down. Burnside thinks Brownlow stopped it because Dashwood is dressed smarted than Brownlow. The retired head of the murder squad offers to help Dashwood. Roach's ex senior officer comes into CID asking for help with a case. He is now head of a security firm and wants to impress the partners and wants Roach's help because Ted is a good thief taker. Roach doesn't want to help because he still hasn't forgiven his boss for putting an innocent man in prison. He nicks a man at the pub with stolen watches.

Boulton investigates an assault on an old man.

Hollis goes from a hero to a laughingstock when he arrests a notorious cat burglar before receiving an official complaint for throwing his lunch into a nearby garden. When the burglar asks to be interviewed by Hollis, he senses a chance to shut his mocking colleagues up.

Boyden puts his job and his love life on the line when his daughter disappears.

PC Cathy Bradford is back on the beat, but this time it's quite literally, MURDER! Having been sent out on a case involving a man who has been left broken hearted after discovering his wife's infidelities, Cathy has no time for pathetic men and finds herself increasingly frustrated with her fiancé Max. When he makes a move on her, she suddenly finds herself unable to carry on with the charade of their relationship and pushes him away. Falling to the ground he cracks his head and asks Cathy to help him up. Instead, she smashes Max's head with her ASP - just how far will she go? Sergeant Dale Smith forms a bond with teenager Leo Price who is struggling to hold his family together against the pressures placed on him by his junkie mum, her abusive boyfriend and the drug dealing gangs that control the estate they live on. But are Smithy's good intentions about to prove his trust in human nature wrong? Reg visits Sheelagh and the new baby in hospital, whilst PC Jim Carver is back in acti