Chas Dingle (Lucy Pargeter) furiously confronted Cain Dingle (Jeff Hordley) over the revelation that they have a secret brother in tonight’s Emmerdale (26th December).
Cain has known about Caleb’s (William Ash) existence for 30 years, but Chas only discovered the truth when Caleb introduced himself to her on Christmas Day. In the aftermath of that bombshell, Cain realised he would have to tell wife Moira (Natalie J Robb) everything when she visited him in prison.
Meanwhile, Caleb spoke to Chas, telling her he had grown up in care and showing her his birth certificate to prove that Faith had given birth to him when she was in jail. While tense conversations were going on in the present, we were given an insight into the new character’s history with a series of flashbacks.
As a young man, Caleb (Riccardo Drayton) approached Cain (played by Aiden Kane, who captures Hordley’s incarnation perfectly) at the garage he was working in.
Caleb explained that he was his brother; and Cain lied that their mum Faith (Sally Dexter) had already died – telling Moira that at the time, pretending Faith was dead was his only way of coping.
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Cain had managed to find somewhere to live with a teenage Chas (played by Maddy Barker) after they got away from her violent dad Shadrach, and it seemed that Cain was on the verge of introducing her to Caleb when Chas fell pregnant with son Aaron (Danny Miller).
Later that same day, Cain shunned Caleb, who had turned down being adopted into a loving family because he believed he was going to be welcomed into the Dingle clan.
When Cain rejected him, Caleb stole a car from the garage, and as Cain jumped inside the vehicle, the police were soon in pursuit. Cain ordered Caleb to leave and said he would take the blame, insisting that Caleb must never show his face again.
But, as Chas recounted in the present, Cain’s boss at the time had used the car for criminal activities, and his alibi meant that Cain took the fall. When Cain was released from prison for the first time, he had changed forever.
Cain had suggested Chas move in with Aaron’s father Gordon in his absence, and now he told Moira that if he hadn’t been busy protecting Caleb, he might have been able to protect Chas and Aaron from the abusive Gordon.
After speaking with Caleb, Chas read Cain the riot act over the phone for keeping Caleb a secret for all those years. She was furious, and warned Cain that his past had well and truly caught up with him. What does this mean for the pair’s fractured bond?
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