Rootless drifter Joe gets work as a barge hand on the canals. Things are going well until the near-naked and bloated body of a woman is found in the water. The incident triggers flashbacks of Joe's cruel treatment of a past girlfriend - causing his sexual behaviour to turn ever more erratic, as he and his boss's wife become lovers and it emerges that Joe knows more about the dead woman than he wants to admit. Drama set in 1950s Glasgow, based on Alexander Trocchi's novel, with Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton, Peter Mullan and Emily Mortimer