Possible Clues:

• It puts the squeeze on Tom's team
• Asks for lift from sailors? That could be unpleasant!
• Tom's company in painful squeeze
• One's fingered for torture?
• Little Tom's hands make this an excruciating instrument
• Excruciatingly awful digital processor
• Absolute torture for this to be threaded by hand
• Perhaps Tom's gang discovered a way of making you talk?
• Torturer chucked around - what was it? - a science degree
• One puts the squeeze on Tom's team