6 Emmerdale Spoilers for Next Week – 26th to 30th January

Next week on Emmerdale, Kim and Joe are faced with a ghost from the past, Paddy continues to protect Bear, and Ruby comes to a horrific realisation.

1) Paddy is buoyed as the police look to Celia

In the wake of yesterday’s bombshell revelation—that Bear (Joshua Richards) is not only alive, but responsible for the death of Ray (Joe Absolom)—Paddy (Dominic Brunt) is firmly in damage-limitation mode, scrambling to keep his father’s involvement from coming to light.

For weeks, Paddy, Ray and viewers alike had been led to believe that Bear was dead, killed by Celia (Jaye Griffiths) shortly before she herself was killed by her son.

Ray had taken his mother at her word that she’d disposed of Bear, and was unable to bring himself to enter the attic room where Bear lay motionless on the bed, mourning the man he had begun to regard as a father figure.

But had Ray gone any closer, he would have discovered the truth—Bear wasn’t dead at all, merely asleep.

As Ray set about his business, the results of which ended up with several suspects for his eventual death, Bear roused and also made his way down to the village.

After failing to win back Laurel (Charlotte Bellamy), being confronted by Arthur (Alfie Clarke), threatening Paddy, and being beaten up by Graham (Andrew Scarborough), Ray saw red when he came across Dylan (Fred Kettle) just as he was about to leave the village for good.

Vengeful over the fact that it had been Dylan who brought about their downfall, Ray marched him into Tenants and began to attack him. A failed attempt from Paddy to defend Dylan led to him also being at Ray’s mercy, but everyone was gobsmacked when Bear then wandered in through the back door.

Ray tried to talk Bear down and persuade him to leave, but the situation escalated as Bear finally snapped, placing Ray in a neck hold in a desperate attempt to bring the chaos to an end. Before he knew it, Ray was dead.

In the aftermath, Paddy and Dylan moved Ray’s body to the depot van outside, only for an unsuspecting Jai (Chris Bisson) to drive off with Ray in the back.

Realising the best way to protect Bear would be to pretend that he’s still missing, Paddy took his dad away to a cottage outside the village.

As the week came to a close, guilt weighed heavily on Paddy as he reluctantly locked his father inside one of the bedrooms, convinced it was the only way to keep him safe.

Next week, as we return to the present day—three weeks on from the incident—Paddy approaches DS Walsh (Amanda Ryan), who has been heading the investigation into Ray’s death, asking for an update. 

Whilst unable to talk specifics about the case, Walsh informs Paddy that they’re very keen to talk to a missing Celia as a person of interest.

Paddy’s quietly buoyed by the news, and is quick to inform Dylan that the police appear to be directing their suspicions elsewhere for the time being.

Though with Celia also dead—and likely to have been buried by Ray in the newly-dug grave recently seen in Moira’s (Natalie J Robb) field—how long will it be before the police are pointing the finger back in the direction of the Dingle clan?

2) Graham returns

Elsewhere in the village, Rhona’s (Zoe Henry) taken aback when she enters the vets to find Graham waiting for her. Graham revealed to Rhona that he was alive shortly before Ray’s death, having returned to the village after hearing of April’s (Amelia Flanagan) plight.

Graham had promised to deal with Ray, but as he gave him a beating in the village hall, he was forced to make a quick exit as Joe (Ned Porteous) arrived on the scene.

Graham proceeded to leave the village, with Corrie‘s Jodie (Olivia Frances Brown) bundled in the back, only to get caught up in the traffic jam following the Corriedale accident.

Having secretly seen Joe unconscious at the crash site, he later lurked outside his hospital room, with Joe catching a fleeting glimpse of a hooded man who curiously looked like his late father figure.

When Ray’s body was eventually found, Rhona assumed that Graham had been responsible, and has been desperately trying to get hold of him as she watched others come under suspicion.

Rhona’s furious at Graham for ignoring her calls for so long, but it’s not long before Graham is again interrupted by the arrival of Joe.

As Graham hides behind the door, Rhona is on edge, particularly after Joe reveals that he could have sworn he saw Graham at the hospital.

From his hiding spot, Graham is disconcerted to learn of Joe’s much-improved relationship with step-grandmother Kim (Claire King). 

3) Kim and Joe are faced with a ghost from the past

Up at Home Farm, with Kim having lost beloved horse Ice last month, Joe suggests that he could replace him with a horse from the same gene pool. Kim appreciates the gesture but turns the offer down, pointing out that Ice was one of a kind, and you can’t just bring the dead back to life.

But she’s left eating her words when her supposed late-husband Graham chooses that exact moment to reveal himself.

Both Kim and Joe are stunned as they’re faced with the man they believed to have been dead for the past six years!

Considering Kim had taken a hit out on Graham shortly before his disappearance, after discovering he planned to flee the village with Rhona, how will she and Joe react to Graham’s resurrection?

4) Arthur’s wracked with guilt over Ray’s cash

Down at Mulberry, Laurel feels as though she’s finally turning a corner with Arthur, after their falling out over the Ray situation.

As the two reeled following the revelation of Ray’s various crimes, Laurel slapped her son when he criticised her for letting that kind of man into her bed.

Arthur had already stolen Ray’s backpack at that point, hoping to thwart his attempt to escape justice, but inadvertently found himself lumbered with a large packet of drugs. The wad of cash he found inside, however, was quickly pocketed before Laurel saw it.

As Laurel remains unaware of the cash in his possession, Arthur hides it away in his hoodie pocket before heading out.

Later, April can’t help noticing that Arthur appears unusually flush with money. When he casually asks whether she ever got to keep the cash for the work she did for Ray, April is quick to correct him—explaining that Ray manipulated her throughout and ensured she never saw a penny.

The exchange leaves Arthur facing the reality that the money he’s holding has come directly from the suffering of April’s family.

A short while later, outside Smithy Cottage, Arthur lingers with the wad of cash, debating on whether to put it through the letterbox to return it to its rightful owner. With a heavy dose of self-loathing, Arthur opts against it and makes a hasty retreat.

5) Ruby worries over Anya’s fate

Meanwhile, the aftermath of Ray and Celia’s heinous crimes stretch further across the village, as Ruby (Beth Cordingly) comes to the horrific realisation that Anya (Alia Al-Shahibi), the young woman she’d attempted to help, may well be dead.

Ruby, Caleb (Will Ash) and Joe first encountered Anya when they discovered her hiding in the back of one of the depot trucks. While it was initially assumed she was a stowaway from the continent, it later became clear to viewers that Anya had been attempting to escape from the village—and more specifically, from Ray and Celia’s farm.

Although Ruby did what she could for a visibly unwell Anya, offering her somewhere to stay, Caleb was wary of the consequences if the truth came out. He initially tried to pay Anya to leave, but later relented and agreed she could remain. However, witnessing the couple arguing over her presence prompted Anya to take the money and flee anyway.

Sadly, she hadn’t got very far when Ray tracked her down and captured her again, forcing her back to the farm where she was reunited with Bear and the other workers.

Bear cared for Anya as she became increasingly ill, but she tragically passed away after Ray and Celia refused to take her to hospital.

When Bear insisted on a proper funeral for Anya, Celia chose a site in one of Moira’s fields, using a discarded blanket of Moira’s to bury Anya and divert blame should the grave ever be discovered.

The only clue to Anya’s whereabouts—other than the freshly dug grave—was her ribbon, that Bear tied to a nearby tree to mark her final resting place.

But with events of the week leading Ruby to now fear the worst about what became of Anya, how long it will be before her suspicions lead her to the truth?

6) John’s death weighs on Victoria

Also next week, Victoria (Isabel Hodgins) is struggling to come to terms with another recent death, her accidental killing of half-brother John (Oliver Farnworth).

Amongst all the chaos of the car crash, Victoria had found herself face-to-face with her wicked sibling in the woods as he tried to evade capture.

As he attempted to drug her again, Victoria managed to get hold of the syringe and plunge it into John’s neck. However, in a twist echoing the death of Nate (Jurell Carter), John had a fatal reaction to the drug and died at the scene.

Panicking in the immediate aftermath, Victoria placed the syringe back in John’s hand in an attempt to make it appear that he had taken his own life—unaware that Joe was nearby, secretly filming the entire exchange on his phone.

Robert (Ryan Hawley) tries to reassure Victoria that she acted out of necessity and had no other choice, but his attempts to rationalise what happened fail to bring his sister any comfort.

While Victoria understands the circumstances that led to that moment in the woods, she finds it impossible to move past one simple fact—that she’s now a killer, and will forever have to live with the guilt.