P.C. Santini tries to apologize to W.P.C. Fox for going too far against her wishes the night before but she tells him to stay away from her. Santini obtains Fox's address from CAD and calls on her but she doesn't want to speak to him. Fox tells a Federation representative from Stafford Row about the assault but can't decide whether to make a formal complaint. The next day, the pair are assigned together. Santini loses a prisoner and blames it on Fox. Santini calls at Fox's flat that evening. She refuses to let him in. He threatens that if she wants a war, she's got a war.

Smithy and Rickman attend a break in at a primary school and find a seven-year-old boy looking for food. Further investigation reveals that the boy has been living alone for three days and his parents are nowhere to be seen. Interviewing the family's friends and relatives, Deakin discovers that it is very unlike the parents to just disappear without trace, and CCTV footage shows a van watching the family's house on the night of the disappearance. Blood found in the family bedroom indicates the parents may have been harmed, but Deakin is furious when a racial attack on the restaurant where the boy's father works is found to have been investigated by Smithy over a week previously.