Brian Labinsky, determined to drag the Everglide Shoe Company into the twentieth century, decides to sack half the workforce and transfer most of the production to sweatshops in India. Before long, a local supplier goes bankrupt and its manageress, Tina Grimston, suffers a heart attack but the series of undisguised death threats from Tina's husband has little effect on Labinsky. When Labinsky's body is discovered mown down by Grimston's Land Rover, DCI Sidney Walsh believes he is looking at an open and shut case. But Grimston has a cast iron alibi and Walsh is forced to rethink his methods.