Just a few minutes later, the bronze Cortina came to a hold with squeaking tires. Both Hunt and Tyler got out. While the DCI stormed into the little shop, Sam stood by the car for a moment, taking it all in. Several police cars were parked around the shop in awkward angles, their lights still on, painting the surrounding houses in a blue pattern. This shop was only a couple of blocks away from his flat, Sam realised, and he remembered he had been shopping in there a few times. Then suddenly, it hit him.
The room had changed. It was bigger now, colder, and full of shelves and refrigerators. Music was playing through the intercom system. It was sterile. So cold…

"Earth to Tyler!"
Sam realised that Gene was talking to him.
"Wha'?"
"Work to do, ey?" Gene returned and went back into the shop, with Sam following this time. Tyler stopped again when he noticed tyre markings on the street. He knew the whole A-Division was there, so without looking up, he called Chris.
"Get me a picture of these markings," he said, leaving it to Chris how to do that.
Chris, being eager to please, hurried off with a "yes, boss". Even if this Tyler lad was acting very strangely sometimes, Chris had come to admire him for his focus on forensics. Chris was always learning something new around him and he liked that. The young DC loved to learn new things. So when he saw a journalists with a camera snapping pictures of the scene of the crime, he went over to him, confiscated his camera and took some shots of the tyre markings instead.

The shop was very small, only one shelf in the middle and a counter with a register to the left of the entrance. The walls were filled with well stocked shelves, holding most goods you would need, from canned foods to band-aids.
The shelf in the middle, however, wasn't as neatly stocked anymore. Candy was lying all around and Sam recognised some smashed Curly Wurlys on the floor. In the middle of all that harmless candy was a male victim. A puddle of blood had formed next to his head.
Sam felt a pinch in his stomach. He knelt down to feel a pulse, but the man was already dead.
"Damn," he cursed under his breath when he got up again.
"We're gonna nail these bastards!" Gene added, though addressed to no-one in particular.

"How much did they get?" Sam wanted to know, as if that made any difference.
"30 quid's," Ray Carling returned; chewing gum. He had been checking the register.
Sam closed his eyes in anguish, when he heard something. It was coming from a small room in the back of the shop. He had missed the door on first sight, since it was the same colour as the walls surrounding it.

"Did anyone hear that?"
"What? I didn't hear anything," Ray said, working his cigarette.
But Gene looked at his DI. He hadn't heard anything either, but by now he trusted him enough to know when to listen to him. Sam went closer to the door and listened. There it was again. A faint crying sound. And this time, Hunt had heard it as well. He nodded over to Sam to open the door. He carefully opened the door, but only a bit to take a peek inside. His eyes needed a moment to get used to the dim light in that back room, but when they had adjusted, he opened the door wide enough to slip through and enter the room.
"P'lice, show yourself!" Sam demanded from whoever was hiding in here.
When he didn't get an answer, he looked back to Hunt through the opened door. Again, Gene nodded to tell Tyler to go ahead.
Sam stepped deeper into the room, his neck tingling with excitement. He was fully alert that at any moment, someone could attack him. He looked around and saw a bed on the left side, a small table with a television set on the right, next to a chair. On the bed, he found the source for the crying.

"Oh my God," Sam whispered when he saw a small infant bundled up on the bed.
"Guv!" he called his superior. The governor came into the room, following Tyler's look and found the baby as well.
"Bastards," was all he said.
"What do we do with..."
Sam stopped. He didn't even know if the baby was male or female. The baby started crying again, it was clearly unhappy. Sam bent down and carefully lifted the small human being up into his arms, gently striking its head.
"It's okay, you're safe now," he tried to comfort it. And while Gene only rolled his eyes, the baby stopped crying, curiously looking at that unfamiliar face.
Sam started cradling it without thinking about it.
"Well Gladys, seems it likes you, though I don't see why..." Hunt said and left the room again, shouting for DS Carling and DC Skelton.

When Sam finally left that back room as well to join the others, his superior already knew the victim's name.

"James Benson," he said, tilting his head towards the spot where the body was.

"And it's a girl," he added, pointing at an "it's a girl" greeting card on the counter next to the register.

"Let's take you home then," Sam said to the girl, who had now fallen asleep in the Detective Inspector's arms.