Death Valley episode 2 recap: Who murdered the mystery walker?

Death Valley is a new BBC One cop drama starring Timothy Spall as retired actor John Chapel, with Gwyneth Keyworth as his reluctant cop partner DS Janie Mallowan. Here's what happened in episode 2 as the pair have to work out who murdered a mystery walker...

The episode opens with a tranquil scene of beautiful scenery until a walking group leader, Anne (Vicki Pepperdine) starts complaining that one of the walkers has broken the schedule and set off early. One of the walkers is Janie's mum, Yvonne (Gavin & Stacey's Melanie Walters), who says she doesn't get it as Karen agreed on a breakfast with her. I'm not liking Karen’s chances here!

Another walker, Bronwen (Mahli Harries), complains that Karen has been flirting with her son, Steffan (Dylan Malyn). They arrive at a waterfall, and beside it is Karen's body. Yvonne calls the police, well, her daughter!

Baxter says to Janie that this is the fifth faller they’ve had in two years. "When are people going to learn exercise kills," she says. Janie says Karen doesn't have the right equipment. Clarke turns up. Clarke says the place brings back bad memories… of a family holiday! Baxter says you'd expect lower body injuries from a jump, so she thinks Karen fell to her death.

Janie says the only concrete information they have is that the victim is called Karen Barnes. But then Evan says no, she isn't, and she gave a false address. So it’s a mystery who she is…

In an old TV show, John is giving an awful talk on acting to an audience about the use of the eyes. "This is amazing," says Janie, watching the DVD in John's house. Chapel said it was part of a masterclass series, and he resisted taking part, but gave in in the end as a gift to his profession!

Janie admits she's there to talk about the mysterious walker. She says she thinks the victim must have arrived on foot. Janie gets very excited because John has Caesar's coat. John says the victim had a childhood without money because she had sugar sachets in her pocket. Also, she had an apple stalk with two pips, which means she ate the core, which John finds interesting because he does it as well.

John thinks she was murdered. Janie's surprised. John says look at her shoes, and the fact that she had no phone. Janie says they're working on the theory that the phone slipped out of her pocket when she fell and was washed away, but John says a phone’s not falling out of the attire she had on. John says the killer took the phone to stop the police from finding out who she really was. He says the killer knew the victim.

Janie and John meet the walking group. Janie's mum gets a bit tongue-tied meeting a national treasure. Anne, the treasurer, introduces herself and asks for a signature. John thinks she wants an autograph, but she soon puts him right. It’s a consent form. She gives him a snack bar.

Melanie asks Janie in Welsh about why she's hanging around an old bloke until John points out he knows quite a lot of Welsh as his wife spoke it!

John talks to Anne about the victim, whom she describes as a troublemaker who arrived late and signed up online. She also turned up without the proper equipment or money to pay for things. She adds that Steffan paid for her in the end, which she thought was odd, but she thinks there's a lot that’s odd about "mummy’s boy" Steffan.

John then talks to Steffan, his mum, Bronwen, and Leah (Lu Corfield). Clearly, Bronwen and Leah don't get on. John gets upset because he says this is the type of place he went with his wife. Bronwen says she wasn’t happy Steffan paid for Karen and says she flirted with him. Leah admits to wanting to throw her out of the group for upsetting the mood. Bronwen adds that Ryan (Lawrence Walker) stormed off when Karen was talking about dark things in people's pasts.

They reach the pub. Janie tries to talk to Ryan, but doesn't do a very good job of it. John follows him into the toilets, and Ryan quickly throws something in the bin. John fishes out Ryan’s discarded medicine.

Leah tells Janie she didn't see Karen leave early in the morning of her death. Ryan says he saw her leave, and so did Bronwen. The gang also reveals that Anne, who’s a doctor’s widow, and Karen almost came to blows over money.

Anne it outside the pub on a bench dedicated to the memory of her husband, who retired early due to Parkinson's. It was his spot. John says it's 10 years since his own wife's death.

John tells Janie he doesn't think Anne is the killer. Ryan had mental health medication. Janie says the landlady didn’t say much. John talks to her, and she starts talking nonstop! She says Karen was involved in "sexual going-ons" in the night!

John then falls over. John says they will have to leave him because he's injured. The others leave John, Janie, and Yvonne behind. Turns out John was putting it on and says to Janie and Yvonne they need to go!

John says he faked his accident so they could get on with finding Karen's car. He says she's "cheap," so she wouldn’t have paid for a car park. Yvonne wants to check that John’s not a sex pest! She explains that his TV show was the only thing that got Janie through her best friend dying. She killed herself.

John smashes the window of a car and says he's convinced it's Karen's. John finds Karen's driving licence in the glove box and it turns out her real name is Veronica Mount.

Back at the station, Janie tells the team the victim is a psychiatric nurse from Cheshire. "Not everything is a murder," says her boss, desperately hoping it’s not a murder. Janie gets a call from Baxter, though, confirming it's murder.

Karen was dead before the fall, and she was hit with some kind of metal rod. Yvonne says that Anne took an immediate dislike to Karen. Evan calls to say Karen until 2023 got regular deposits of £5,000. John says that explains the dark things in people’s past comment, blackmail. John says she was blackmailing Ryan. John says he was lying about seeing the victim that morning because he identified her through the heart on her coat, but he couldn’t have seen that as she was wearing her backpack.

Ryan is brought into the station. Ryan says he lost his medication during the walk and had to get an emergency prescription sent over, and that's where he was. He says he didn't get the coat wrong and that Steffan can confirm it, as he also watched Karen leave in the morning. Ryan’s story at the chemist's checks out. John says Steffan's acting weird because he slept with Karen.

They knock at Steffan’s house. He and his mum Bronwen, answer, and she announces she murdered Karen!

In the coffee shop, they both agree that Bronwen isn't the killer, and then John says she was right, and it all hinges on the backpack.

John and Janie gather the suspects in the pub. John says Bronwen is just protecting her son. John says Steffan didn't kill Veronica. He says, like him, she mistakenly thought Steffan spent the night with Veronica. Turns out Stefan was, in fact, with Leah! Veronica caught the pair kissing on the walk. So Stefan offered to pay for her room so she wouldn’t tell his mum. Ryan asks: "So who did kill Veronica?"

Anne is revealed as the killer

We go outside the pub to see Anne sitting on her husband's bench. John says he first suspected Anne because of the snack bar. She always offered one on arrival, but not to Veronica.

Anne knew Veronica because she used to live in Manchester, and Veronica worked with her surgeon husband. She knew he'd botched a procedure due to his Parkinson’s, which he hadn't declared.

So, she blackmailed him. She threatened to expose the truth about her husband. Anne thought she'd paid her off, but then she turned up on the walk. Anne told her to meet her alone, and she'd pay her. But instead, she murdered her.

John says Anne used a poker from the pub to strike Veronica. After hitting her, Anne removed her phone and pushed her over the edge. Anne asks how they knew.

Janie says the backpack. Ryan saw Veronica walking off without one. So, who did Bronwen see walking with the backpack? "She left it in her room," says Anne.

So Anne came up with a plan and pretended to be Veronica, taking her backpack, so she could ensure Veronica was found with her backpack. John says it was very neatly packed in an Anne way but totally out of character for messy Veronica.

Anne is taken away by the police. Later, she makes a full confession. Janie asks John out to the pub, but he says he can't as he’s joined a book group. Janie says her mum goes! John doesn't look happy about that.

John gives Janie Caesar's coat, and Janie gives him a big hug. Bless! She makes him put the coat on and say the line: "Crime waits for no man". They start arguing because Janie says he doesn't sound like Caesar.