Who is H on Line of Duty? Ian Buckells revealed as Fourth Man, but Carmichael and Osborne remain suspicious
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The sixth series of Line of Duty is over, with the seventh episode tying up some of our loose ends – while leaving plenty up in the air.
Once more, of course, the central question of the latest run has been a simple one: who is H (or, as we call the antagonist now, the “Fourth Man”)?
And thankfully, fans did get some solid answers in the finale – here’s everything we found out, and the loose threads that remain.
Who is H on Line of Duty?
The final episode gave us the solution to one of the most tantalising long-standing clues in the quest to identify the Fourth Man – the mispelling of “definitely”.
A text message intercepted by AC-12 early in the finale reading “JD definately high risk. Contact assets in BP.” revealed that our culprit still hadn’t learned to spell.
It prompted a deep dive from Chloe into the spelling of “definately” in old case files (which probably would have been a good idea before now).
This indicated that it was none other than the seemingly bumbling Ian Buckells who had been the source of the messages, which prompted fears from Steve and Kate that AC-12 would look incompetent for not identifying him sooner.
The evidence against the bent copper mounted. Messages from Buckells were found on a fingerprint-plastered laptop in a fancy house worth £3 million and registered to a company listed in the Cayman Islands, which also owned a timeshare property in Gran Canaria.
It turned out that he was indeed the Fourth Man, and had been living a double life thanks to the money he’d made helping out the OCG.
Hauled into the iconic glass office for a grilling, he said he wasn’t a mastermind at all – especially since the OCG broke off into smaller factions after the death of leader Tommy Hunter – and instead just helped out the criminals do their bidding.
This made some sense – out of all four Hs (Dot Cottan, Derek Hilton and Gill Biggeloe and now Buckells), he certainly seems the least competent.
Catching Buckells doesn’t mean the saga is over, though.
Following the theory that it was officers, rather than the OCG, that ordered the death of journalist Gail Vella, the team put it to the bent copper that he and Philip Osborne colluded to have her killed lest she expose their purposeful bungling of the inquiry into Lawrence Christopher’s murder.
Failure to comply with their investigation would mean he’d never be granted witness protection; if he confessed to conspiracy to murder, he’d be ineligible for immunity.
This left him cornered, but we never found out if he gave up the Chief Constable, who ended the episode with a public statement denying any institutional police corruption.
We also discovered a request was made by central police for public-interest immunity in legal proceedings against Buckells, which if approved, means no evidence of institutional corruption will be allowed to be presented in court – very convenient.
Questions remain about Patricia Carmichael, too – is she bent, or just wonderfully unpleasant?
She looked typically shifty Buckells was hauled in for questioning, and dismissed Steve’s request for an inquiry into the corruption around the Lawrence Christopher case, saying that historical cases were no longer a priority.
We also don’t know if she will investigate Ted Hastings after he confessed his leaking of information to Lee Banks and the OCG. If she doesn’t, she’ll look bent. If she does, our favourite gaffer might be in trouble.