3. Why was Laverty in the bag as well as Corbett?

First up a quick recap. Jackie Laverty appeared in series one, a corrupt property developer who was working with the OCG and who was also having an affair with DCI Tony Gates. The OCG murdered her in front of Gates and framed him for the murder, which led to him being blackmailed by the gang, investigated by AC-12 and ultimately was the reason he took his own life. Laverty’s dismembered limbs have been on ice ever since, but why have the OCG chosen this moment to get rid of her as well? Corbett’s corpse was enough to incriminate Hastings, why choose this moment to use their particularly grisly bargaining chips? Even Ted seems confused by this.

4. So is Ted really being stitched up?

It’s obvious that Ted is H (or at least has been using the moniker to his own end), but it seems that he really didn’t expect Corbett to have been killed and is crying, “It’s a stitch up! Mother o’ gawd save us!” The gang are closing ranks and not giving anything away, unless Steve and Kate can get Lisa to crack (she didn’t actually commit any of the murders after all). Ted must have known that they would find out he’d visited Lee Banks, thus incriminating himself all too easily (although no one can prove what “this bastard” said to “that bastard”). Plus, there’s the money in his flat, planted by that sly weasel, former DCI Mark Moffatt. Ted, we’re afraid they’ve got you bang to rights.

However, all this just seems like an attempt at misdirection – to return to a phrase we used in our recap of episode 2, it smacks too much of the ‘coin on the shoulder’ con (click here for an explanation of that phrase and an anecdote about how we found out the surprisingly simple way magician Dynamo fools his audience). If we know anything about Line Of Duty, the real criminal is never simply hiding in plain sight.

All the big questions from Line Of Duty episode 5