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for half an hour. Why? To establish an alibi for a fire he had arranged to start at nine o’clock? Ridiculous. If he wished to establish an alibi, why did he not go to some function – the social club run by his old workmates and friends from Crossways, for instance. They had a function that evening. Then he would have produced fifty people to support his alibi.”
    Mr. Tasker blew his nose loudly at this point, and said, “Next, perhaps someone will explain why the accused hired two men to break into his own garage. Wouldn’t it have been easier to lend them a key? This whole case is founded on a faulty premise. The Crown say, this garage was doing badly. It was insured. The accused burned it down. He was the only person who could benefit. Now we know that’s not true. This garage was doing well. And going to do even better. The people who would want to burn it down – the only people with any possible motive for burning it down – were his rivals. The people he’s taking business from. It’s common knowledge there are too many garages in this district. There’s one in the very next street. Of course, I’m not suggesting—”
    “But he bloody well did suggest it,” said Watterson, as they were walking back to the station after the case had been dismissed, and a contingent of Willie Cookson’s friends from the goods depot had cheered him all way out into the street. “Albert Rugg keeps the Octagon Garage in Kentledge Road and everyone knows he’s been losing business to Cookson.”
    “Albert was in court,” said Petrella. “You should have seen his face.”
    “It’s not funny,” said Watterson. “We’ve been made to look stupid. There’ll be a rocket from District about this.”
    “If Albert got anyone to do his dirty work,” said Petrella, “I guess it would have been Stan or Les Corner. Should I pull them in and put them through it?”
    “Drop it,” said Watterson sourly. “The case is dead. It’s finished.”
    But here he was wrong.
    Albert Rugg, owner of the Octagon Garage, was a bachelor, like Cookson. He didn’t live above his business. He had a comfortable flat, over a newsagent’s shop, a quarter of a mile away. He came back to it, a week later, and had shut the flat door before he realised that he was not alone. Not only was Willie Cookson waiting for him, but he had with him three friends from the Crossways Depot.
    Albert was fat, and a bit of a coward. He started to bluster, and when he had been knocked down twice, he looked fearfully out of a fast-closing right eye, and said, “What’s it all about? What do you want?”
    “You know bloody well what I want,” said Cookson. “I want the truth.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    The larger of the men closed in again. Cookson said, “Hold it. We want him in one piece. He’s going to sign a confession.”
    “I got nothing to confess to,” said Rugg. “Just because that cunning bastard Tasker tried to put the blame on me. I ought to sue him for libel.”
    “I tell you what we ought to do,” said the second of Willie Cookson’s assistants. “I seen this on television. We tie him in a chair, and take his shoes and socks off. And we put one foot on the electric fire. It’s effective, see?”
    “It sounds effective,” agreed Cookson. “Let’s give it a try.”
    In no time at all, they had Albert lashed to a dining-room chair. When he started to shout they stuffed the socks they had removed into his mouth, and tied them there with a tea-towel.
    At this point the doorbell rang. Cookson said, “See who it is and send them away.”
    One of the men went out. As he opened the flat door it came inward at him with a crash and Stan and Les Corner came in fast, supported by a cousin called Lew.
    Stan Corner said, “Lucky I happened to see these bastards come in,” and battle was joined. It was a lovely fight. The railway men were large, and determined. The Corner boys were smaller, but had a slight edge in