Ella Forster (Paula Lane) made a winning impression the first time we saw her in Emmerdale. The feisty character was seen sticking up for Mandy Dingle (Lisa Riley) against an obnoxious man – Ella’s boss at the time – who was belittling Mandy.
When she arrived in the village she continued to win admirers among the locals, including of course Liam Cavanagh (Jonny McPherson).
His attraction to the feisty and fun Ella soon developed into a relationship – one that Liam is currently participating in more by the force of Ella’s willpower than his own inclination, as he was wavering about getting together with her because he also had feelings for Chas Dingle (Lucy Pargeter).
Ella is a woman with hidden depths, it seems, and several hints over recent weeks have got fans speculating about her having a shady past.
There’s even a theory that she could have a connection to Emmerdale’s very own deranged serial killer Meena Jutla – currently in prison for her multiple crimes – after Ella dropped a comment about a former friend who was a nurse.
Meena’s sister is, lest we forget, Manpreet Sharma (Rebecca Sarker), who still lives in the village and is, in fact, Ella’s boss. The two have already had a run-in after Manpreet became concerned that Ella and Liam’s attraction to each other could end up causing all sorts of problems in the workplace and tried to nip it in the bud.
But speaking of inappropriate relationships, Manpreet has recently started to develop a bit of a crush on her personal trainer, Billy Fletcher (Jay Kontzle). Billy hasn’t noticed this yet, but he’s about to – leaving Manpreet with a bit of a problem after she perhaps foolishly decides to confide in Ella.
Ella gets a group of women including Manpreet, Claudette (Flo Wilson), Mandy and Gail (Rachael Gill-Davis) together for a few drinks to cheer Manpreet up. Everyone is having a good time, but when Ella notices Manpreet fawning over Billy she pulls her aside for a chat.
Manpreet tells her that she has a bit of a crush on the hunky PT instructor, and Ella warns her not to take things any further.
Unfortunately Manpreet is either too drunk or too besotted with Billy to heed this warning and later grabs Billy and plants a kiss on his lips.
The following day she’s again confiding in Ella about what happened and Ella’s advice is that it’s best if Charles (Kevin Mathurin) never knows that the incident occurred – but Manpreet owes Billy an explanation.
Unluckily for Manpreet, Charles has overheard this conversation. Did Ella intend that to happen or was it an accident?
That’s the thing with Ella – we just don’t know, though we may soon start to get answers about her in scenes that have already been filmed that show Ella and Liam at the funeral of someone called June Phillips – where Liam and then Ella get into a heated argument with one of the other mourners and secrets are bound to start coming out.
