The Alibi drama returns for its second episode this week.
After breaking Alibi records with its first episode last week, Nicola Walker drama Annika continues on the channel tomorrow – and RadioTimes.com can reveal an exclusive first-look clip.
Whereas the first episode saw Walker’s title character use Moby Dick as a way into the case, this week she introduces the murder with a reference to another literary source.
“I don’t know about you, but a high point at school was learning about the Scandinavian sagas,” she explains.
“And there was one in particular, where a man foraging in the woods discovers a cabin where 12 women are at work at a loom.
“And it’s not one of those charming wood looms,” she continues. “It’s this gruesome thing made out of men’s heads and human entrails, and the women start singing a song where they choose who is to be slain at the upcoming battle. And at the end, they get on their horses and fly away. These women were known as Valkyries.
“Now, I haven’t seen a loom or heard anyone singing but someone made a choice about whether the person on this boat should live or die, and I only get called out for the second thing.”
According to the official plot synopsis for the second episode, this new case will take Annika and her team to the Isle of Bute – and, although the evidence initially points to a jilted lover, a darker secret soon emerges.
The procedural is adapted by Nick Walker from his popular Radio 4 drama Annika Stranded, and follows the eponymous detective as she solves various murders on the Scottish coast as the head of a specialist Marine Homicide Unit.
Annika’s team includes characters played by Kate Dickie (Game of Thrones), Jamie Sives (Guilt) and Katie Leung (The Nest) while the series also explores her relationship with her stroppy teenage daughter Morgan (Silvie Furneaux).