Line of Duty: Fans identify pivotal season three moment which could eliminate Ted Hastings as ‘H’ suspect

Hastings is one of several characters fans think could secretly be ‘the fourth man’

Series six of Line of Duty has kept the twists coming thick and fast, with the identity of the corrupt police officer formerly known as “H” still up in the air.

Fans of the BBC’s hit police drama have speculated about “H”, now known as “the fourth man”, with many suggesting that Superintendent Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar) could in fact be the bent copper at the heart of it all.

The evidence against Hastings has been mounting this series, with Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) and Kate Fleming (Vicky McClure) finding out about the dirty OCG money Hastings secretly gave to Steph Corbett.

It was also revealed that Hastings told Lee Banks about the presence of a rat in the OCG, which led directly to the murder of undercover officer John Corbett.

However, with just one episode left in the season, it’s too soon to convict him yet – and there’s one particular scene from the series’ past which viewers claim exonerates Hastings of possibly being “H”.

The name “H” was first coined before the death of Dot “The Caddy” Cottan, who tried to identify the corrupt officer in his find moments, using a series of blinks.

After Dot confirmed the letter “H” to Fleming in code, the DI returned to the start of the alphabet to get him to confirm the second letter.

She went past the letter “A”, with Cottan seemingly not blinking or responding to the code – suggesting that whatever he was spelling out couldn’t have been “Hastings”. Though, of course, he was dead soon after.

Adrian Dunbar as Ted Hastings in Line of Duty (BBC/World Productions)

“How crazy it is to think we were shown two series ago that Ted wasn’t the ‘H’ to whom Dot was referring: he didn’t blink on ‘A’ when Kate started going through the alphabet for the second letter,” wrote one Twitter user.

Another said: “Did they not notice that Dot did not blink twice when asked about the letter A during his dying declaration. Would’ve saved a lot of time. H-A...stings.”

“Dot blinked on the letter ‘H’ and was still conscious up to ‘E’ or after on the second alphabet run through. He didn’t blink on ‘A’ so the surname couldn’t start HA so Hastings isn’t possible,” wrote someone else.

Many viewers are expecting the mystery of “H” to finally be revealed in the series six finale, which airs on BBC One at 9pm this Sunday (2 May).