Can you crack TV’s most addictively baffling murder mystery?
BBC1’s Line Of Duty ends tomorrow. And, whether you’re already hooked or just catching up, JAN MOIR’s A-Z is packed with tantalising clues
AfTeR four series, 22 episodes and many, many fraught evenings spent gripped by one of the most nail-biting police dramas ever seen on British television, tomorrow’s Line of Duty finale on BBC1 all boils down to one simple question: who the heck is Balaclava Man?
No, make that two questions. Who is Balaclava Man, and what the heck is going on? No, let’s go for three questions: who is Balaclava Man, what is going on and who the heck is H, the mysterious high-ranking cop who is part of a clandestine network of corrupt officers in league with organised crime?
If you’re feeling befuddled, bear with me. These are just some of the lines of inquiry that concern AC- 12, the dogged police anticorruption unit at the heart of Line Of Duty.
Their job is to root out wrongdoing within the force, under the command of Superintendent Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar), undoubt- edly the best cop on television. everyone loves the craggy crusader for his moral probity and his status as unimpeachable king pippin in the barrel of bad apples.
Super Ted crushes guilty parties to a cidery pulp and has just one thing on his mind — identifying and punishing crooked cops.
He does this by crashing around in his policeissue blouson jacket, narrowing his eyes like a Northern Irish anaconda and shouting things such as ‘Mother of God!’ And don’t you dare criticise his team, fella. ‘My officers conduct themselves to the letter of the law, Sir, the letter!’ he will cry.
His key squad members are DS Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) and DS Kate fleming (Vicky McClure). Steve is in a wheelchair after being beaten up by the aforementioned Balaclava Man, and is so upset he’s stopped wearing the waistcoat of his three-piece suits.
Kate has just been unmasked as the world’s worst undercover officer, with a technique that involves standing up at her desk à la meerkat, then gasping when she spots suspicious behaviour. EACH series of Line Of Duty follows AC-12 through a new investigation into dark deeds by their fellow police officers. This time around, they’re still searching for the mysterious crooked officer ‘H’, but they are also looking into the terrifying DCI Roz Huntley (Thandie Newton).
Huntley is in charge of finding a rapist and murderer known only as Balaclava Man — but seems to be bent on framing the wrong guy for the crimes.
She has also just had her left hand amputated (don’t ask), and was last seen one-handedly taking a hairbrush from a sealed bag and rubbing it into her husband’s jumper, presumably to impregnate his pullover with some Balaclava-related evidence. We don’t know why.
Neither do we know what motivates creepy Assistant Chief Constable Derek Hilton (Paul Higgins), the tough boss who is always trying to seduce Huntley and seems hell-bent on destroying AC-12. Hang on a minute, Dr Watson — could Hilton be the corrupt H? Or is it Roz Huntley — or even the admirable Ted Hastings himself?
The idea that Super Ted might be as bent as a broken truncheon could be a plot twist too far for Line Of Duty fans. But this latest series — dense, complex, shocking, tremendous — has taken us to the darkest side of the thin blue line.
Here, person or persons unknown are plotting to pervert the course of justice in the most complicated and obscure ways possible. It is so confusing.
As we approach the climax of the series, Balaclava Man is still at large, H has yet to be unmasked, everyone is behaving like a lunatic and the suspects are forming a disorderly queue down at the murder hit ’n’ kit shop. Haven’t a clue? Me neither.
Let’s try to make sense of it all with my criminal ABC of Line Of Duty 2017 . . . A IS for AC-12, the specialist unit which investigates police corruption. As DS Steve Arnott says: ‘The easiest way to get away with killing someone? Be a police officer.’
B IS for BALACLAVA MAN, the woolly-masked villain who has murdered two women and abducted another. He also beat up DS Arnott with a baseball bat and threw him down three flights of stairs. The investigation into his capture, led by DCI Huntley, appears deeply flawed.
C IS for culprit. Viewers have been encouraged to believe that sex offender Michael farmer (Scott Reid) is being framed as Balaclava Man by Huntley — but why? Is she shielding her husband, Nick? If so, she’s not doing a very good job, cos she arrested him for murder last week.
D IS for DeAD, which is what forensic officer Tim Ifield (Jason Watkins) is. He tried to convince Huntley that farmer was innocent, then he tried to kill her with a chainsaw, as you do, but was somehow murdered himself. By her? Your guess is as good as mine. Tim had his secrets, including a burner phone for secret calls and there were hints of an obsessive relationship with one of the victims. Is he Balaclava Man? He certainly owns a balaclava and behaved with the clammy creepiness one would expect of a serial predator.
E IS for evidence. Huntley has been v. v. busy with the cotton buds and rubber gloves — but she’s not been cleaning her ears. Our girl has been planting evidence, tampering with evidence and generally leaving no evidence of her evident meddling. Surely her luck must run out soon?
F IS for fella, which is what Hastings calls men he doesn’t much like, which is nearly everyone. Women are called ‘wee girl’ and sometimes ‘darling’, which is thrillingly sexist. f is also for frozen body parts, which keep turning up.
G IS for The Great Bafta Mystery. Why wasn’ t critically acclaimed Line Of Duty nominated for any? Writer Jed Mercurio says he prefers big audiences — nine million consolidated every week — to big awards. However, there is no doubt he has — somewhat ironically for a crime writer — been robbed. H IS for Hastings, Huntley and Hilton. SUPT TED HASTINGS: Ted is old school, a man who knows there is a line between right and wrong. He is sexist, in the way that a man of his generation would be — but he is not a bad person or boss. However, he is not perfect. In the last series his links to freemasonry were exposed. He also had a gambling habit, and a wife who left because of it.
Likelihood of being H? Over my dead body, fella. DET CHIEF INSPECTOR ROZ HUNTLEY: Roz is a crisp and efficient officer — with a terrible secret. ‘I just want it to be over,’ she said to her husband in the first episode. But what — and why?
She is also a violent husband-beater who has enmeshed herself in layers of lies. The arm injury she received while fighting with Tim Ifield (see D for Dead, left) turned into a suppurating wound, and her hand was amputated. elsewhere, she appears to have admitted to an affair she is not having — to hide the fact that she killed someone?
Likelihood of being H? She is the Killer Queen — but is she highranking enough to fit the bill? ASSISTANT CHIEF CONSTABLE DEREK
HILTON: Currently trying to shut down AC-12. He was station chief back in series one, when frozen body parts and masked men featured in another corruption case. With both those motifs back in full force, does Hilton have something to hide?
unknown to Ted, Hilton had an informant inside AC-12. He is also close friends with Huntley. What sour history binds them together, despite his unrequited crush on her?
Likelihood of being H? The obvious suspect, but is that too obvious?
I IS for Interrogation Scenes, the jewel in the Line Of Duty crown. Last year, one lasted a remarkable 23 minutes. This year Huntley turned the tables on Ted, by interrogating him during her interrogation. unbearably tense, the scenes provide the show’s best moments of pure drama.
J IS for JARGON. ‘Laddering’ is finding someone who has committed a crime, then loading more offences onto his charge sheet. Phone triangulation is how you locate a suspect. A Regulation 15 notice — ACC Hilton has
just served one on Ted — informs an officer that they will be investigated over a complaint or conduct matter.
K is for Ds Kate fleming, the trusty sidekick who was recently promoted — but has just failed miserably undercover.
she secured the dying confession from Dot Cottan in series three (let’s not go there) which revealed that the mastermind of cop corruption was someone called ‘H’.
L is for lawyer. Crikey, what is solicitor James lakewell (Patrick Baladi) up to? apart from delivering some of the best lines in the series?
He told a ranting Ted to ‘dial down the ian Paisley’ and even called wheelchair- bound steve ‘ironside’.
more importantly, he’s everywhere — he’s got links to chief suspect michael farmer, is close friends with roz and nick Huntley, and his build is oddly similar to Balaclava man’s. something smells fishy, and it’s not a red herring.
M is for misogyny. Themes of sexism in the workplace float through this series. steve is annoyed that Kate is now his equal, and has asked for a promotion himself. when Ted calls roz Huntley ‘darlin’, she snaps: ‘i’d thank you to use gender-neutral language.’ m is also for maneet. WPC maneet Bindra (maya sondhi) has turned snitch, giving Hilton and Huntley information to use against ac-12. Huntley also sneers at Kate, citing her estrangement from her children as evidence of inferiority.
N is for newbie DC Jamie desford (royce Pierreson). He has stormed off after Ted accused him of being the leak in ac-12. However, is there more to him than meets the eye? O is for operation Trapdoor, the official name of Huntley’s investigation into Balaclava man. P is for Poor Nick HunTley ( lee ingleby), the henpecked husband.
His marriage to roz seems decidedly abusive, yet he clearly has much to hide.
His alibi for one of Balaclava man’s murders was proven false, he was outside Tim ifield’s flat on the night of his killing, and Ds steve arnott was attacked in his office block.
Q is for questions we’d like answered. why is there no security camera in the forensics unit where evidence is being fiddled with? and what kind of healthcare did Huntley and steve receive? Both were back at their desks superquick, despite one losing a hand and the other the use of his legs.
R is for ridiculous. Ted visited steve in hospital and showed him a photo of a man in a balaclava. ‘is this the man who attacked you?’ he wanted to know.
S is for Ds Steve Arnott, the hotblooded waistcoat-wearing crime fighter. He is always right and everyone else is wrong — but is his judgment off? and will he be stuck in a wheelchair for ever?
T is for Tunnel, where Kate meets colleague steve when she is working undercover.
U is for undercover — which, did i mention, Kate is not very good at. in fact, she’s about as much use as knickers on a kettle.
V is for VICTORY which is what ac-12 are hoping for against the forces of evil — but the odds are stacking up against them. ‘if we go down, we go down fighting,’ says Ted. why? Because . . .
W is for wrong Doing. at the heart of this drama sits the accused, a simpleton called michael farmer.
He can’t even drive and loves his nan, but his name is in the frame. and that upsets Ted. ‘ a young lad might go to prison for a crime he didn’t commit, and if police wrongdoing is part of it, i want to know.’
X is for urgent exit. Can this series beat the outrageous final scenes of the last one, in which Dot died and Kate nearly did, too?
Y is for young cop, namely DC Jodie Taylor (Claudia Jessie). Bespectacled and weedy, she is roz Huntley’s loyal sidekick. Could she be Balaclava woman? oh stop it.
Z is for Z Cars, that stalwart of sixties and seventies BBC cop drama. Because sometimes, just sometimes, all this confusion makes us long for a simple life and a plotline that doesn’t turn our brains into spaghetti. Line Of Duty is on BBC1 at 9pm tomorrow.