Criminal trap con laid in one of four ways (8,5)
I believe the answer is:
cardinal point
'criminal trap con laid in one' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I can't judge whether it can be defined by this definition.
'of four ways' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'of' could be 'o' and 'o' is present in the answer.
'four' could be 'cardinal' ('cardinal' can be similar in meaning to 'four') and 'cardinal' is located in the answer.
The remaining letters 'pint' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for cardinal point that I've seen before include "North, east, west or south" , "Quarter" , "N,S,E or W" .)