Liam Cavanagh (Jonny McPherson) was suspicious the moment he heard that ex-girlfriend Ella Forster (Paula Lane) was pregnant in Emmerdale. Since it was revealed that Ella had killed her best friend when she was a child, Liam has wanted nothing to do with her, and the thought she was expecting his baby horrified him.
Liam insisted on Ella taking a pregnancy test before he would even believe that she was telling the truth about having a baby on the way, but even though it was positive he still wondered whether he was really the father.
After Ella started experiencing pains and Vanessa (Michelle Hardwick) took her to Liam for a check-up, he was worried that living at the salon was a bad environment for her and offered to pay for her to stay at the B&B, which was a slight concession towards her while still not trusting her.
Mandy Dingle (Lisa Riley), by contrast, has been Ella’s staunchest supporter, giving her a roof over her head and offering her friendship without any judgement about what she did in her childhood. She never doubted the pregnancy either, because she was at the hospital when Ella found out about it in the wake of a car accident.
So there’s a shock for Mandy coming up, as a new video clip reveals. Mandy bursts into the living room at Tenants, bedecked in leopard print pyjamas and expecting to see Paddy Kirk (Dominic Brunt). Instead she’s embarrassed to see Liam, who is looking upset.
He reveals the reason when Mandy asks him if there’s something the matter with the baby.
‘What baby?’ he says. He explains that he took Ella to the hospital and they gave her a scan. ‘There is no baby.’
Mandy can’t believe what she’s hearing but Liam emphasises that her friend Ella is ‘a pathological liar – cruel, deluded, a vindictive fantasist…’ He says that the sooner she’s out of the village and out of his life, the better.
Mandy is quick to defend her friend, but Liam is standing firm. He tells Mandy he’s washed his hands of Ella and she would do well to follow suit.
Is he right? Has Ella somehow been lying all along about the baby, or is there something else going on?
Will Mandy stand by her friend?
