The Line of Duty BBC 2

Line of Duty is the best drama on telly. The climax of this five part drama, five hours of google-eyed viewing is on BBC 2 tonight. Written by Jed Mercurio of Cardiac Arrest fame, it’s as taut and tight as you’d expect from such a veteran. If you really want to know what Mercurio is about then a good start would be his novel Bodies, and as a former doctor he knows where they are buried. Bodies follows an intern through his brutal initiation into the hospital world. Detective Sergeant Steve Arnott (Martin Compton) introduction into the shape-shifting world of institutional cover ups in no less explosive. He is part of a team that shoot the wrong suspect. This is a theme in Bodies – an institution protects its own. Those that report negligence -- an operation that has been botched, a protocol that has been ignored, a patient that has been abused – are persecuted. In the same way Arnott in Line of Duty is transferred to the police’s anti-corruption unit, which is the institutional equivalent of putting a glass over a cockroach and forgetting about it.

Superintendent Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar) a veteran of the anti-corruption unit, has big plans for Arnott. He wants him to investigate DCI Tony Gates the region’s officer of the year, the winner of that many gold stars there is no more room on his jotter. In particular, he wants Arnott to investigate boring old grade inflation. Gate’s T0-20 squad have the best return on crime figures for the last three years. Gates is too good to be true. The squad is too good to be true. They don’t even answer their phone to common burglaries. They want the sexy crimes. The big stuff. There’s something rotten in there and Hasting’s is determined to find out what it is.

Jacqueline Laverty (Gina McKee) is the catalyst. She’s pretty and sexy and she makes Gates know she is available. But he’s not playing. He’s a happily married man, with two kids. Rather than knock over the salt dish at such a suggestion, he rushes outside the restaurant they are sitting in and arrests two violent hooded thugs, armed with knives that are mugging a woman. Gate’s deals with it and wins another commendation, another award. He can’t even park his car without winning an award.

Later Jacqueline calls Gates from her plush and gated house. They were once boyfriend and girlfriend and played patty-cake, patty-cake. Now she’s in a terrible bind. It seems she may have knocked over a dog. A regrettable accident. Can Gates help? She may also have been have been ever-so slightly over the limit, and the thing is, she’s has a previous conviction and she needs, really, really needs, to keep her license. She does a bit of shimmying and shaking in front of Tony. He goes weak at the knees, flings a boulder threw the front door and tells her to report that someone has broken in and stolen her car. He’s a bit of a geezer is our Gates.

Gates, being a top detective, soon realises that the dog that Jacqueline may have knocked over is actually her ex-accountant and he’s dead. He has it out with her. She has him out with her too. It’s never too late for sex. Gates is in deep and his life begins to unravel.

As any putative script writer knows if things are bad make them worse. Not only is Gates getting screwed, but he had an undercover nark on his squad: D.C Kate Fleming (Vicky McClure) works for anti-corruption and is feeding Arnott info.

Gate’s T0-20 squad are investigating a number of murders and mutilations on a sink estate that look gang related. Meanwhile, Arnott finds Laverty’s thriving real estate business is nothing more than a money laundering scam. Before you can scream blow-job, a gang bursts into her home, slits her throat, knocks Gates unconscious and puts the razor in his hand. Gates has been played.

The drug gang keep Laverty’s body as leverage so that Gates can head off any investigations into their activities. There’s a bit of twaddle about a whisky glass that could have placed Gates at the scene of the crime. He’d said he’d found the door open and had come to arrest Jackie. Arnott knows that’s a lie. The whisky glass can place him at the scene. Instead of smashing the glass into a million smithereens Gates hides it. But that’s the least of his worries. The drug gang abduct him. It’s a warning to show that he works for them now. They also abduct Arnott. The bolt cutters used to cut off fingers are handy and close by. Will Arnott squeal and tell all he knows? I’m figuring he’ll escape. Not sure how. And that old whisky glass will turn up.