A woman leaves her phone on the Docklands Light Railway in east London. A stranger picks it up and follows her off the train in a bid to return it, but the woman has disappeared. He searches the streets and eventually spots her in a coffee shop. He will accept no reward for his gallantry. This is perhaps the least likely thing that happens in Informer (BBC One). Seconds later, a terrorist gunman runs in and shoots the good Samaritan, which is more believable than the random act of kindness that put him in the path of the bullet in the first place.
Never mind – we are moving swiftly on. In an empty courtroom, counter-terrorism officer DS Gabe Waters (Paddy Considine) – presently known to us only as Witness K – is giving evidence about the coffee shop attack. “I can’t discuss this in an open forum,” he says, leaving us none the wiser. This is followed by a change of scene and the words “One year earlier”. We are now focused on another character: the cheeky, slightly roguish Raza Shar (Nabhaan Rizwan), as he nicks a camera, liberates his little brother from a school detention and buys some pills for a night out. So, it is possible that the beginning of the story was, in fact, the ending. Or it could be that the whole opening segment was a red herring, except that the woman was played by Jessica Raine from Call the Midwife. She must have a bigger part than Lost Phone Lady.
The narrative steadies itself after this, but there is still an unsettling, disjointed quality to Informer: much of it, you realise, will only make sense in the fullness of time. Waters has a troubled past that is merely hinted at. Seemingly minor characters shine with a weird intensity, as if to signal the viewer: remember this guy, he is going to be important later.
To a large degree, this disjointedness suits the material – it keeps you on your toes throughout. In the shadowy milieu of police informers, no bit of information is to be trusted entirely; it is as if we are being trained not to take anything on faith, not even the plot. It is confusing.By the end of episode one, we are not much nearer to figuring out how the first scene is connected to anything that follows. But Lost Phone Lady does indeed reappear; I was right about that.
Waters maintains a large network of informers in the fight against terrorism, expecting little loyalty and giving none in return. “They’ll grass on their mates, their families, they’ll just as easily turn on you,” he tells his green new partner, Holly Morten (Bel Powley). “They’re not your friends. You squeeze them, rinse them; if they give you any trouble, you drop them.”
Ostensibly, they are investigating a recently blown-up terrorist called Ahmed El Adoua, after discovering that he had made a visit to London some months before, when he may have trained some local extremists. Mostly, their investigation involves meeting informers down dodgy alleyways, pumping them for information and not believing their answers. When Shar gets arrested for possession on his night out, Morten attempts to recruit him as her first informer. He is resistant, naturally, but Morten proves to be both persistent and callous (there do not appear to be any genuine good guys in this story, bar the hapless good Samaritan on the train). We know he is going to give in long before he does.
The main performances are very strong. Considine, who is always good, is suitably world-weary, and Powley is quite scary as Morten. Rizwan is, by turns, charming and irritating as Shar. But it is the supporting cast that really stands out. Shar’s overnight cellmate, Dadir Hassan (Roger Jean Nsengiyumva) is particularly great in a role destined to expand over the coming weeks, as is Arsher Ali as an undercover cop who has been out on the streets too long. In this gritty shadow world, where no one is wholly on one side or the other, it is quite surprising how good-looking everyone is. You would think that would constitute some kind of drawback.
Informer is a gripping and engaging thriller. The structure may be a little artful – sometimes the main challenge is keeping track – but I am looking forward to the jigsaw finally locking together, even if, at this stage, the pieces all seem to be from different puzzles. Have faith, trust no one, pay attention.
