Tom King (James Chase) is not only a horrible human being, he’s also Emmerdale’s worst vet as Monday (May 6)’s episode revealed.
A woman brought her elderly dog to the surgery asking to see ‘the blonde one’ – Vanessa Woodfield (Michelle Hardwick) – because the dog had a lump.
Tom was already riled that the woman apparently thought he was less of a vet than Vanessa and insisted he was perfectly qualified to deal with the problem.
After a quick examination of the dog, he told its owner that the lump was cancer. Given the age of the dog and the fact that the woman had no pet insurance, he advised the kindest thing was to put the dog to sleep.
Luckily Paddy Kirk (Dominic Brunt) and Vanessa arrived back at that moment and were aghast at what Tom was saying, given that he hadn’t done any blood tests to confirm his diagnosis.
The lump turned out to be a simple abscess and Vanessa tried to placate the dog’s owner who was understandably furious and upset.
Tom was getting more and more angry as Vanessa made excuses for him. Later he told Vanessa that he knew she’d never wanted him at the surgery.
Vanessa insisted that hadn’t been true, but at the moment he was a ‘liability.’
To appease her, Tom invited her round for dinner with him and Belle Dingle (Eden Taylor-Draper).
Vanessa was a bit reluctant but he extended the invitation to her partner Suzy Merton (Martelle Edinborough) and said that Mandy Dingle (Lisa Riley) and Paddy would be coming, as well as Rhona Goskirk (Zoe Henry) and Marlon Dingle (Mark Charnock).
Vanessa felt forced to agree to this plan and said she’d come.
While a dinner party for all the vets and their partners sounds like a nice idea, as usual with Tom there was a nasty undercurrent.
When he got home he informed his wife Belle about the event and she was horrified when she realised she would be expected to cook for so many people.
Belle is already under stress thanks to Tom’s campaign of coercion and control against her.
In this episode we saw her visiting doctor Manpreet Sharma (Rebecca Sarker) to ask if her contraceptive pills prescription could be delivered to another address.
Tom is insisting that they try for a baby but Belle isn’t ready, so she’s trying to protect herself without him knowing.
Manpreet realised that something was troubling Belle and offered her a confidential space to talk if she wanted to, but Belle isn’t ready for that, either, and Manpreet didn’t push her on it.
Belle is currently hiding her pills in a drawer in the kitchen, which is a bomb waiting to go off at some point – could that happen at the dinner party?
We know that the dinner party – to be aired on Tuesday (May 7) – is a special episode which showcases the tensions between Rhona and Marlon, as their relationship teeters on the brink of falling apart, as well as things between Tom and Belle escalating in a terrifying way.
