Viewers will see Ashley Jensen and Alison O’Donnell return to their roles as DI Ruth Calder and DS Lorna Tosh McIntosh, who find themselves drawn to a remote village following the chilling murder of an elderly woman.
This week, the BBC unveiled a sneak peek trailer of what’s in store in the upcoming series, hinting at strained loyalties.
The brief clip reveals escalating tensions within the team as a colleague discusses the crime scene that DI Calder and McIntosh were summoned to.
He remarks: “I hear it was pretty bad up there.” To which DI Calder responds: “Yeah, about as bad as it gets.”
While the exact details of the incident aren’t revealed, it seems the victim has met a brutal end, reports the Daily Record.
One distressing scene features an elderly man appearing distraught as he questions: “Who did this to her?”
Another man, seemingly speaking to the DI in a separate scene, points out that the ‘obvious’ suspects will need to be investigated first, to determine their involvement in the crime.
A succession of faces then flash on-screen, implying these individuals could be implicated in the murder.
However, Ruth and Tosh might be barking up the wrong tree as a woman accuses them of seeking a ‘scapegoat’, followed by a shot of a young man breaking down in tears.
Before the teaser trailer concludes, a montage of nail-biting scenes flash on-screen, including people running, a woman being chased and a building exploding.
A synopsis for the series reads: “As Calder and Tosh are drawn to a remote village following the sinister murder of an elderly woman. As they begin to unravel life in this close-knit community, shocking, long-buried secrets rise to the surface with unexpected consequences for all – including the team.
“In the isolated hamlet of Lunniswick, the body of the retired social worker Eadie Tulloch has been out in the elements for a number of days.
“Suspecting the residents are holding back about their relationships with Eadie, Calder and Tosh begin to unravel a complicated web of lies. Worse still, there’s a personal link to the case for one of the team, testing loyalty to the limits.”
Alongside Ashley and Alison returning to their respective characters, viewers will also witness Steven Robertson, Lewis Howden, Steven Miller, Anne Kidd, Conor McCarry, Angus Miller and Eubha Akilade making their comeback to the BBC drama.
Additionally, Samuel Anderson joins the cast for series 10 as the new Procurator Fiscal Matt Blake.
Shetland will return on November 5, with the first nine series currently available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
Claire Leveque, 24, died from stab wounds to her neck and chest
A man has been jailed for life after being found guilty of murdering his girlfriend in a hot tub in Shetland.
Aren Pearson, 41, stabbed 24-year-old Claire Leveque to death at his mother’s home in Sandness on 11 February last year.
Pearson denied murder and claimed in court that Ms Leveque had stabbed herself – but a jury found him guilty after a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh.
Judge Lord Arthurson said it was a crime of “exceptional depravity” and “feral butchery” and described Pearson’s evidence in court as “malicious” and “fabricated”.
He will have to serve a minimum of 25 years in prison before he is eligible for parole.
Police said Pearson had a “controlling and violent” relationship with Ms Leveque, and had attempted to degrade and abuse her before the murder.
“The level of violence Aren Pearson inflicted is truly horrifying,” said Det Insp Richard Baird.
Claire Leveque
Aren Pearson said Claire Leveque stabbed herself
Ms Leveque was stabbed more than 25 times on her neck and chest during the attack.
The couple, who are both from Canada, had moved to Scotland in 2023.
The trial was told that Pearson’s late mother Hazel Pearson, who died in May, had dialled 999 on the evening of the murder.
She told police that her son had walked into the kitchen and returned with a knife.
He stabbed himself in the neck and told her that he had hurt his girlfriend.
Ms Pearson then found Ms Leveque in the hot tub, which was in a shed at her home.
“The water was red with blood,” she told police.
“Claire was covered with blood. She had severe injuries to her face.”
Pearson drove his Porsche into the water
Ms Pearson also told detectives that her son had looked like “a zombie” after the attack.
During the 999 call, Pearson took the phone and confessed to the killing. He said he had stabbed his girlfriend about 40 times.
He also confessed to police officers at the crime scene and to a doctor while he was being treated in hospital.
However, giving evidence during the trial he claimed Ms Leveque had struck him, grabbed a knife and then jumped into the hot tub, where she stabbed herself four or five times.
Pearson claimed she had lost her temper after hearing him speak to her father Clint in Canada about how much alcohol she was drinking.
Police Scotland
Pearson was detained after the fatal attack
After being detained by police, Pearson was taken to the Gilbert Bain Hospital in Lerwick.
The jury heard that he said he had stabbed himself in the neck, consumed brake fluid and driven his Porsche car into the water.
A&E consultant Dr Caroline Heggie treated him for two days following his arrest.
Prosecutor Margaret Barron asked Dr Heggie if Pearson had said something that stuck with her.
She replied: “He said: ‘I’ve been trying to get rid of her for a while’.”
Lord Arthurson said the evidence in the case had been “substantial and compelling”.
‘Quite unimaginable violence’
He told Pearson: “Your much younger girlfriend – your victim in this case – was isolated and vulnerable in Sandness.
“You had from almost the outset of her arrival there subjected her to a cruel campaign of violence and coercive control.”
The judge said Ms Leveque had died “a squalid death of quite unimaginable multifaceted violence”.
“This was a sustained episode of feral butchery,” he added.
“You have sought to blame Ms Leveque for your own assaults against her, and you have, in a grave insult to her memory and to her bereaved family, put forward a defence that Ms Leveque inflicted these catastrophic injuries upon herself – a defence that the jury have unanimously rejected.”
My daughter texted me ‘I love you’ every night
Ms Leveque’s father Clint said his daughter had been “happy, positive and so friendly to everybody”.
Speaking to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Mr Leveque said his daughter was “a typical daddy’s girl”.
“My daughter texted me every night: ‘I love you dad’. Every night of her life,” he said.
“There’s nothing negative that anybody could possibly say about her.”
Mr Leveque said his daughter, who grew up in Westloch, Alberta, had a love of adventure.
Speaking after the verdict, Ms Leveque’s cousin Hope Ingram described her as “a bubbly, fun girl who brought life to every room that she walked into”.
“I miss her terribly,” she said
“It’s so nice that we can now move forward and just remember Claire instead of thinking of this awful incident.”
‘Hard to comprehend’
She thanked everyone who had helped get justice for her cousin.
Ms Ingram said she hoped that as a result, other victims of domestic violence would be able to “move forward and come forward”.
Hope Saunders, who still lives in Canada, was a close friend of Ms Leveque.
“It’s sickening that someone so bright and so young and so beautiful could have her life taken away from her in the flash of a moment like that,” she said.
“It is hard to comprehend and it gives you that sick feeling in your stomach, and her being so far away in the Shetland Islands breaks my heart even more.
“I don’t want to even think about how scared she might have been in that moment.”
Andrea Manson, the convenor of Shetland Islands Council, said she hoped that the guilty verdict brought some closure to Ms Leveque’s family.
“In a normally safe and caring community the tragic loss of a beautiful young lass is a tragedy that’s being felt by everyone in Shetland,” she said.
The BBC has announced the new cast for the third series of Vigil, which will see Suranne Jones and Rose Leslie return as DCI Amy Silva and DI Kirsten Longacre
16:56, 29 Sep 2025Updated 16:57, 29 Sep 2025
The production for the third series is now underway in Svalbard and Scotland
The BBC has revealed the additional cast members joining Suranne Jones and Rose Leslie for the comeback of acclaimed drama Vigil, and amongst the recognisable faces is a beloved Shetland star.
Shetland performers Steven Miller, Killian Coyle and Dawn Sievewright have secured fresh roles on Vigil, with filming for the third series currently taking place in Svalbard and Scotland.
As previously confirmed, Suranne Jones and Rose Leslie are back as DCI Amy Silva and DI Kirsten Longacre.
The six-episode series will witness the pair tackling a fresh investigation at an isolated Arctic research facility, where a member of a secretive British special forces operation has been fatally shot.
The plot summary continues: “Amy and Kirsten will need to catch the killer and diffuse a potential international confrontation, driven by a land-grab for energy and resources in the changing polar climate, with both their careers and relationship on the line.”
In the first-look photograph, Jones and Leslie can be seen on set, bundled up and prepared for action. The snowy setting certainly provides an atmospheric backdrop for an unsettling new tale, reports the Daily Record.
Gary Lewis is back reprising his character as Detective Superintendent Robertson, who has featured throughout every series of Vigil to date.
Dominic Mafham also makes his return as Sir Ian Downing, whilst Orla Russell comes back as Poppy, Amy and Kirsten’s daughter.
The fresh cast for the third series additionally features Jeppe Beck Laursen, Tornike Gogrichiani, Benjamin Wainwright, Artur Zai Barrera, Jordan Duvigneau and Kaisa Hammarlund. As well as Adam Fidusiewicz, Naomi Yang, Eric Godon, Conor Berry, Amy Manson, Jason Tobin, Steven Cree, Derek Riddell, Alma Prelec and Shereen Cutkelvin.
Specifics surrounding their individual characters are being kept secret, though we can expect they’ll all become embroiled in the fresh mystery and potentially find themselves under scrutiny.
Following the announcement that filming had commenced alongside the new ensemble, writer Tom Edge commented: “I’m grateful to the BBC and World Productions for backing the ambition of a story that takes Vigil to the Arctic.
“This series grapples with the issues that will define tomorrow’s world: melting ice caps, conflict over resources, energy wars, and lives put at risk in pursuit of peace and profits.”
Jake Lushington, executive producer for World Productions, remarked: “We are thrilled to be kicking off filming series three of Vigil with Suranne and Rose in the epic arctic landscapes of Svalbard and welcome our most multinational cast to date, as well as featuring new and established Scottish talent.”
Vigil seasons 1 and 2 are available to stream now on BBC iPlayer.
It takes us 38 hours – two trains, a tube, the Caledonian Sleeper, a day in Aberdeen, a hire car and the NorthLink ferry – to reach Shetland from our home in Oxfordshire, and yet the immortal words “Are we there yet?” are not uttered once. When the ferry docks at Lerwick, the kids, Lydia (11) and Alex (eight), are uncharacteristically silent as we take in the view: the town huddled on a low hill, the water shimmering in the morning sun, and islands as far as the eye can see.
We are spending a week in the archipelago, travelling first around Mainland, the main island, and then north to the less populated islands of Yell and Unst, linked by regular ferries. It turns out to be the perfect location for a family holiday: short journey times (it takes 80 minutes to drive from the southern tip of Mainland to the northern) combined with the sea almost always being in view, and the excitement of a boat or ferry trip every day.
Northern gannets near their colony on Noss. Photograph: Biosphoto/Alamy
On Mainland, we base ourselves at Hayhoull B&B. Mary, the owner, makes us feel like part of her family and cooks us delicious dinners that even my picky son doesn’t turn his nose up at. We wake to spectacular views of St Ninian’s Isle, before heading to Lerwick harbour to join a boat trip with Shetland Seabird Tours. Skipper Phil tells us we’ll be sailing up to Noss island to see the gannet colony. Alex turns to me with wide eyes. “They dive like missiles!” he whispers excitedly.
First, though, we see eider ducks, paddling just outside the harbour, and fulmars in cosy pairs on the cliffs. The latter, Phil tells us, “have a nasty defence mechanism against birds of prey – they vomit on them and ruin their flight feathers”. The kids are delighted and repulsed at the same time. Then there are sentry-like shags inside a cave, crowds of black guillemots and a solitary puffin bobbing on the waves, which sends a ripple of excitement around the boat.
But it is those gannets that steal the show. They appear as we approach the uninhabited, sheer-cliffed island of Noss, unmistakable with their pointed white beaks and yellow head feathers. As the birds (about 600–700 according to Phil’s estimate) circle and call above us, Phil submerges a long metal tube in the water; he throws a mackerel down it and within seconds the first gannets are folding their wings back and in and shaping themselves into bird torpedoes, before plunging bullet-like into the deep blue water. It is a phenomenal sight. The only word I hear out of either child for the next 15 minutes is “Wow!”
In fact, if there’s a word that characterises our visit to Shetland, “wow” is it. At Jarlshof prehistoric and Norse settlement, where thousands of years of human habitation are revealed in the remains of countless buildings, the kids wander off happily with their audio guides, pointing things out to each other with glee; what I had anticipated being a 10-minute visit takes us an hour and a half.
Just down the road is Sumburgh Head lighthouse, where the season’s first puffins have recently arrived. We listen to a recreation of the sound of the lighthouse foghorn that is so loud the kids cover their ears, and climb up the foghorn tower to see the land drop away into the seemingly endless sea.
Sumburgh Head lighthouse. Photograph: Ian Dagnall/Alamy
Another boat trip takes us out to the small, uninhabited island of Mousa, an RSPB nature reserve. A huge broch (an iron-age circular tower unique to Scotland) stands on its south-western shore; though it’s closed on our visit, we peer through the gate to look at the layered stone interior and imagine the people and animals that would once have lived there. We have three hours on Mousa, and spend them wandering the two-mile path around it at a leisurely pace, losing time watching seals play in East Pool and spotting nesting fulmars. “Stay away from them,” Alex tells us. “You don’t want to be sicked on.”
Back on land, we walk the short distance from our B&B to St Ninian’s Isle, reached via the UK’s largest active tombolo (a sand bar). The kids immediately whip off their shoes to submerge their feet in the soft white sand; while they play, my husband and I walk across to the island. From the top, we have a clear view of both the kids and the skerries (small rocky islands and reefs) that pepper the isle’s south side.
Just up the road is West Lynne croft (small farm), where the multitalented Cecil Tait shows us around and demonstrates the skills of his sheepdog, Bess, who is convinced that we need herding too. Tait, who also makes furniture and wool, and runs woodworking courses, tells us that all the while we’re talking he’s translating in his headfrom his native Shetland dialect into English. I watch the kids digest this. “Wow, Mum,” Alex says afterwards, “I didn’t know English wasn’t everyone’s main language here.”
The next day, we head for Unst, the archipelago’s most northerly island. Getting there involves driving through Mainland and the neighbouring island of Yell, and two short ferry journeys (Mainland to Yell, and Yell to Unst), with the excitement building as we go. Most people come here for the birds and dramatic coastal scenery of Hermaness national nature reserve, on the northern tip of the island, but we decide against a three-and-a-half-hour walk battling the wind (and the children). Instead, we opt to head along the south coast with Catriona Waddington, the chair of Wild Skies Shetland, which has set up interactive “sky stops” to help visitors explore the island.
We walk for a mile along the blue-tinted sands of Easting beach and then above the rocky shoreline to one of the stops, Framgord. A listening post invites us to hear a Norse story or a fiddle tune that Catriona says “always makes people waltz”. The kids are soon doing exactly that. That night, they sleep – much to their excitement – in traditional alcove beds at the elegant Belmont House.
En route back to Mainland, we pause in Yell for the afternoon, spending more than two hours wandering its gentle north-eastern shoreline on an otter-watching tour with Brydon Thomason of Shetland Nature. Armed with binoculars, the kids tramp happily for miles, stopping every time Brydon does, to join him in scanning the shore and water.
Emma Gibbs’ children, Alex and Lydia, spotting otters. Photograph: Emma Gibbs
There are no complaints about the cold or the distance; there is too much to learn about otters, such as how we have to walk downwind so they can’t smell us, and how to identify their toilets. Brydon has been otter–spotting since he was Alex’s age. “I was excited by the thrill of how hard they were to find,” he tells us. “It’s like being a detective in nature.”
The kids are clearly happy being detectives, too. But when the shout to “Get down!” comes, they are more than ready, dropping straight on to their fronts as we follow Brydon’s instructions to crawl on to the beach. There, in the water, is the slick, dark curve of an otter.
Brydon sets up his camera so the kids can take photos when the otter comes on to the shore. When she does, though, she is not alone; she is with her two cubs and is busy demolishing an octopus she has caught. We watch, through binoculars and Brydon’s camera, in a silence that is broken only by emphatic wows. “This is why I do it,” Brydon says with a smile. “For reactions like these.”
In Shetland, it seems to me, they are the only reactions to have.
