Evil capitalists are in the cross-hairs of this six-part thriller, conceived and mostly written by Sotiris Nikias. Possibly not the most original of villains, but they serve well enough as the basis for a story which takes a dive into the unscrupulous underbelly of London’s Square Mile and then spreads its tentacles around a cluster of assorted reprobates and untrustworthy characters.
Our heroine is Zara Dunne (Sophie Turner), who works at pension fund managers Lochmill Capital, based in a swanky new skyscraper somewhere near the Lloyd’s building and the Gherkin. But while the company’s high-flying investment specialists can earn a million-pound salary plus the same again in bonuses, Zara is in a dreary back-office job which only pays about 30 grand.
It all begins on what seems to be another normal day. Except suddenly it isn’t, because the Lochmill building is raided by a crew of stony-faced bandits armed with automatic weapons. They seem to know the way the Lochmill business works in suspicious detail, since they command Zara and her colleague Luke (Archie Madekwe) to go to their computer terminals and effect a transfer of £4bn to a list of unrecognised bank accounts. By an extraordinary coincidence, this enormous quantity of cash has just recently been made available by transferring it out of various investment funds (the heist, pictured below).
Since it was Zara who helped the gang (albeit at gunpoint) to effect the transfer – the gormless Luke having been rendered useless by a panic attack – the police naturally take an interest in her. But this could be worse, because the lead detective is the handsome and rather charming DCI Rhys Covac (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd), who must be the nicest policeman anyone has ever met. He’s also a compulsive gambler with serious debt issues, but he’d prefer you not to know that.
But cop-wise he’s no schmuck, and his sleuthing antennae immediately start to quiver when he interrogates Luke and Zara. In fact Luke is such a trembling, gibbering ninny that he’s virtually a signed confession in human form. But while Covac is convinced they’re both involved, he’s also pretty sure they’re not the brains behind the operation.
This is of course true, and we’re soon off on a fast-paced adventure that takes in various well-known public figures while also shining a spotlight on treacherous goings-on within the police and security services. Covac’s boss, Superintendent Nichols, is livid when a mole from MI5 is placed inside his investigation and is constantly breathing down his neck and second-guessing him. This guy’s security service boss is Anna Maxwell Martin, who revels in being limo’d around town putting the fear of God into hapless pawns in the bigger game. Indeed, MI5 is depicted here as a merciless and all-powerful organisation, which can have anyone bumped off or disappeared at a moment’s notice, as if we were in North Korea-on-Thames (pictured below, DCI Covac with Ellie James as DI Ellie Lloyd).
Incidental pleasures en route include being introduced to Zara’s mum Haley (Anastasia Hille), a cynical old bat who has a healthy respect for her daughter’s latent potential, even if she seems incapable of fulfilling it, and a guest spot by Peter Mullan as bellicose, foul-mouthed business tycoon Sir Toby Gould. Andrew Koji puts in a nice little turn as Darren Yoshida, a super-brainy business analyst (and financial investigator and risk manager) who seems to be a capitalist with a little streak of Marxism running down the middle.
Still, it’s Sophie Turner who takes top trumps. Former teenaged star of Game of Thrones, she tackles the lead role here with aplomb, tackling the high-octane stuff just as capably as more introspective or self-doubting interludes. She could probably do James Bond if she put her mind to it.
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