Caleb Miligan (William Ash) has been back to his old tricks in Emmerdale recently, plotting and scheming chiefly against Kim Tate (Claire King).
Having initially arrived in the village with the intention of destroying Kim, the woman he blames for the death of his father, his original plan was eventually thwarted by Kim. Since then Caleb has apparently concentrated on settling in to the village and as part of the Dingle family.
Most of the more recent scheming from the Miligans has been driven by Caleb’s wife Ruby (Beth Cordingly), who’s been using Rose Jackson (Christine Tremarco) as her chief weapon to drive a wedge between Kim and her husband Will Taylor (Dean Andrews).
But Caleb’s grievance against Kim hasn’t gone away. Recently he delighted Ruby by unveiling his latest plan. Realising that what’s most important to Kim is being lady of the manor, he’s set about buying up land adjacent to Home Farm and plans to create ‘an empire right here on her doorstep.’
Following this he revealed that he also needed some lorries for his new business and, rather handily, Kim’s husband Will Taylor and his business partner Jimmy King (Nick Miles) own a haulage company.
So it was no surprise when Jimmy recently had a couple of huge financial setbacks in his business, and Caleb was behind both of them. A delivery went adrift, which led to the company’s biggest client pulling the plug on their deal. Then they were inspected by the traffic examiner who found a discrepancy in the records that they were supposed to keep.
Viewers saw that the traffic examiner was in the pay of Caleb – although when he tried to get more money for his efforts Caleb told him he wouldn’t pay him at all because ‘that’s not how I do business.’
In last night’s episode Jimmy decided to tell Will about the lost contract and the large fine they could expect following the inspection. Will’s initial reaction was that it was all Jimmy’s fault and he would have to take the hit.
Jimmy said he financially couldn’t do that, and then appealed to Will’s better nature by admitting that he was worried sick about his daughter, Angel (Rebecca Bakes), who is due home soon after being in youth custody for killing Heath Hope (Sebastian Dowling) by dangerous driving.
Jimmy suggested that Kim might know the kind of accountants who could make bad financial figures disappear, but Will said they didn’t need an accountant, they needed a magician. With selling the business not an option as far as Jimmy was concerned, Will could see only one way forward. ‘If we’re going to go down, maybe we don’t go down without a fight,’ he pledged. ‘Kicking, screaming, punching, biting – whatever else we have to do.’
With the two men agreeing that they would do whatever it takes to win, how long will it be before they discover who’s behind their current troubles – and go after Caleb?
