Earlier this year, Ruby Miligan’s (Beth Cordingly) abusive father Anthony Fox was found dead in the depot in Emmerdale.
At first, Aaron Dingle (Danny Miller) believed he had killed him after beating the man a few hours earlier. The trauma and guilt in the aftermath slowly started to eat away at Aaron, so much so he then went to Ruby’s house and confessed to killing her dad.
Ruby revealed the truth to Aaron, telling him that she killed her father shortly after he left the depot.
At first, Aaron thought reporting Ruby to the police was the best option, but he then learnt about Anthony’s abuse, and how he is the biological father of Steph Miligan (Georgia Jay) as a result of raping Ruby when she was a child.
As it stands, Ruby, Aaron, Steph, Chas Dingle (Lucy Pargeter), Caleb Miligan (William Ash), Cain Dingle (Jeff Hordley) and John Sugden (Oliver Farnworth) are the only people who know about Anthony’s demise – and they’d certainly all like to keep it that way.
Unfortunately, someone hanging around the group like a bad smell is Jai Sharma (Chris Bisson), who has worked out the Miligans are immediately put on edge whenever Anthony is mentioned.
His dogged approach means Caleb needs to watch out, knowing one more person finding out the secret could cause their pact to fall apart.
‘I think Jai’s nosy by nature anyway’, William Ash explained recently.
‘Caleb in the past has taken him to the cleaners financially and Jai is so reliant on Caleb being his boss and his source of income, Caleb is really wary of him. If he starts digging he might find something about Anthony and about Ruby and all the rest of it, and about Anthony being Steph’s dad.
‘He could blow it wide open. So he’s wary of Jai.’
In order to put distance between Jai and the group, Ruby decides to tell him about Anthony’s abuse in upcoming episodes.
‘I think it was an absolute tactic just to shut him up’, Will said, reflecting on this moment.
‘It’s quite brutal how she tells him, as well. She’s quite matter-of-fact about it and it does have the desired effect, it does shut him up. I think it would shut anyone up. I don’t think he thinks it’s something as bad as abuse that happened with Anthony, but when he does find out it shuts him up.’
Caleb remains unaware of what his nephew did to him…
A few weeks ago, Caleb was in hospital after being stabbed. Unbeknownst to him at the moment, the incident only occurred as a result of his nephew Joe Tate (Ned Porteous).
Joe orchestrated a plan that saw Caleb end up on the operating table just so he could get his working kidney. At the moment, Caleb doesn’t know the truth but just like most secrets in soapland, it probably won’t stay hidden forever.
‘It’s a huge violation, somebody doing that to you’, Will noted.
‘It’s compounded by the fact that it’s somebody he thought had saved his life. He’d be incandescent with rage and he would want to kill him. In other situations Caleb isn’t impulsive, he’s quite calculating.
‘He’ll choose a moment to get revenge. But something like that, he’d just go. He’d fly off the handle.’
