Manpreet Sharma (Rebecca Sarker) got a surprise on her morning run in Tuesday (May 21)’s Emmerdale when she spotted her colleague Ella Forster (Paula Lane) sleeping in her car.
Ella explained she’d been evicted from her home. Later Manpreet let slip about what had happened and Liam (Jonny McPherson) suggested that Ella could move in to the spare room at his house.
This meant Ella bringing her belongings into the house – and literally dropping a massive clue about the big secret she’s been hiding since she came to the village.
Mandy (Lisa Riley) accidentally knocked over a box of belongings, and a photograph fell out. Mandy picked it up and we saw it was of two little girls, one with reddish brown hair and the other with dark hair, laughing and having fun together.
‘Is that you?’ Mandy asked, but Ella snatched the picture away telling Mandy to get her hands off her stuff.
So who were the little girls? Was one of them Ella? Who was the other one? Well, we have a couple of theories about that and both of them are related to Emmerdale’s most notorious murderer, Meena Jutla (Paige Sandhu).
Since Ella arrived in the village she’s taken a particular interest in Meena and her victims.
She was interested in Dawn (Olivia Bromley) and Billy (Jay Kontzle)’s horrific experience when Meena held them at gunpoint on their wedding day, but at the time that seemed like a fairly natural reaction to hearing about a very dramatic incident that happened to someone you’ve just met.
More recently, though, we’ve seen Ella apparently fascinated by a photograph of Liam’s daughter, Leanna (Mimi Slinger), who was one of Meena’s victims. When Liam started opening up about his daughter Ella found it hard to cope and dashed off.
There have been a few other moments where Meena has been mentioned and Ella has taken a very specific interest. There was also a mention of a former friend who was a nurse – like Meena.
Could one of the little girls in the photo actually be Meena?
Or could the picture show Ella and Nadine Butler? Before Meena arrived in the village she’d already killed someone – her best friend, Nadine Butler, who was also a nurse.
Nadine’s sister told Manpreet that Meena had controlled every aspect of Nadine’s life until eventually Nadine broke away from her control and started to make other friends. Furious at this, Meena killed her.
Meena confessed to this murder to Leanna Cavanagh moments before she pushed her to her death from a bridge. Possibly Nadine is one of the girls in the photograph and Ella could be the other girl, her childhood best friend.
In either of these Meena-related scenarios the question remains – what is Ella’s motive for being in the village? Is she out to gather information – or to seek revenge?
