Vigil recap, episode 3: Amy makes more enemies amid the fake drug tests, stolen guns and questionable tattoos

Annabel Nugent recaps the events of the underwater thriller’s second episode

(BBC/World Productions)

We’re halfway through and I’m already mourning the absence of Vigil from my Sunday night telly slot. Tonight’s episode opens with a quick summation of what we already know: Jade is dead, Burke was poisoned and there’s a larger cover-up at play. How large is still to be determined. Aboard HMS Vigil, DCI Silva is making enemies left, right and centre. It’s not every day that you’re stuck living in close quarters with the same people you’re accusing of murder and conspiracy.

Between a lad’s trip gone awry, fake drug tests, a stolen gun, a dubious MP and a questionable tattoo, there was a lot to chew on this evening. The dots are emerging, that’s for sure. It’s just I have no idea how to connect them yet.

The S*** List

Thanks to Jade, who texted Longacre the password to the USB’s private folder before she met her untimely demise in last week’s episode, we finally know what Burke was so intent on hiding. It’s essentially Burke’s “s*** list” as one person called it – an account of suspected misdeeds committed by his fellow crew members. Most notably, there’s a drug test positive for LSD as well as an illicit photo of Doctor Docherty (say that 10 times fast) with an unidentified man sporting a large dragon tattoo. Let’s start with the drug test. The date of the test turns out to coincide with the time that HMS Vigil once made headlines in Port Havers, Florida for disorderly behaviour. The boat had docked for maintenance, the crew went out on the lash, and 15 members were arrested as a result. Drugs were allegedly involved but the consequent drug tests carried out by the Navy turned up negative (but did they, really?). The positive drug test found on the USB, then, proves something shady went down.

Who – or rather what – is Davies?

After some solid sleuthing into the whole Port Havers debacle, DI Longacre manages to track down John Deerborne, an ex-HMS Vigil sailor who was present on the evening of that fateful night of partying-gone-wrong. A stone-cold meeting transpires between the two and just when we think Longacre’s going to have to write this one off, he says the most promising words that can be uttered in a detective drama: “This can never, ever come back to me...” We’re on the edge of our seats. Deerborne only manages to cough up the name “Davies” before shutting down again – but it’s enough and soon Longacre is on a mission to discover just who Davies is.

Davies, though, is not the name of a person but a company. A naval services company to be exact. After an emotional and tense scene of Walsh contemplating suicide with a stolen gun, we hear the story straight from him: one evening in Port Havers while the submarine was undergoing maintenance checks, the crew went out on the town and got extremely pissed. Drink, drugs, fisticuffs ensued. When junior mechanic Ross Harmison went back to the boat to do something or rather with the reactors, he was still off his head and didn’t notice the temperature rising. Cut a long story short, two maintenance men from Davies were cooked alive and it was all his fault. Things could have been worse though. Had Walsh not returned to the boat soon after, we’d have been looking at, as he puts it, another Fukushima nuclear disaster. So, the Navy covers it up: Those involved are told to keep schtum while Hamerson is transferred to the Middle East. Drug tests are administered by Doctor Docherty, who admits to falsifying their results so that the crew get the all-clear. Done and dusted. The crime was swept under the carpet and forgotten – all except for Burke, who continued insisting that he had been spiked and got the drug test done to prove it.

Rose Leslie as Longacre (BBC/World Productions)

The Coxswain with the Dragon Tattoo

All eyes are on Doctor Docherty as Silva tries to piece together why she would falsify the drug tests. Was it to protect her mates as she says? Or was she being coerced from above? As it turns out, we’ve been looking in the wrong direction this whole time. The focus should be on the anonymous man with Docherty in the scandalous photos. A couple of scenes later (Silva finally putting together Longacre’s clumsily worded code and seeing a topless photo of Glover on the beach) and we know that the man behind the cliched body art is none other than our dear, sweet coxswain. Only now can I think: DUH! The good ones are always bad. Silva, armed with this new knowledge, goes to leave the office only to be blocked off by the mystery man himself. Does he know she knows? Does she know that he knows that she knows? I need a lie down.

Friends in high places

With Jade’s body zipped away, Longacre dives into phone records and bank accounts. It’s not long before she finds monthly bank deposits of £1,000 and late-night calls tracing back to MP Patrick Cruden, a vocal critic of the Navy. Was he paying her for tips about the Navy? All signs point to yes, but Patrick says no: He’s her father and the deposits were her allowance. The book appears to be closed on this storyline but given the twists and turns so far, it’s unlikely this will be the last we hear from our mourning politician.

Don’t blame the Russians

Paterson Joseph as Newsome (BBC/World Productions)

With all the immediate action unfolding at full throttle, it’s easy to forget about the seemingly less urgent matters at hand – you know, like the enemy submarine threatening the whole of the UK’s national security and what not. With the sunken trawler recovered, it doesn’t take long to trace the tile ripped from the offending submarine back to its origins. Good news, it doesn’t belong to the Russians. Bad news, it does belong to the UK’s supposed allies across the pond. Tests come back on the tiles proving that they belong to an American submarine. Now we know the “who”, it’s time to figure out the “why”.

Three’s a crowd

With the ongoing power struggle between the police and the Navy, we’ve already got two warring factions on our screens but for good measure Vigil have thrown in a third. MI5 has officially joined the party. And after Longacre discovers it’s the two agents that have been ominously trailing her all this time, chances are we’ll be seeing plenty more of them.

Something’s cooking

We need to talk about the galley chef. It’s the second time the camera has panned to chef Jackie Hamilton, and again she’s in tears over Burke. Why is she so affected by his death? Is it because she has a son going through a difficult time, as Glover insists, or is there more to it?

Vigil continues next Sunday at 9pm on BBC One