Steph Miligan (Georgia Jay) doesn’t intend to rest until she finds out what really happened to Anthony Fox (Nicholas Day) in Emmerdale.
The evil character was killed earlier this year by his daughter Ruby (Beth Cordingly). She suffocated him to d.e.a.t.h, with John (Oliver Farnworth) then disposing of the body after it happened.
Ruby, John, Caleb (William Ash), Cain (Jeff Hordley), Aaron (Danny Miller) and Chas (Lucy Pargeter) then created a pact. They all agreed (eventually) to keep the truth about Anthony’s d.e.a.t.h a secret to save them all from prison but also to protect Steph, who’s yet to find out that her granddad is actually her father.
Upcoming episodes will finally see Steph get closer to the truth, as she receives an important call that fuels her concern about Anthony.
‘She gets a phone call from a friend of his in France. He was meant to be turning up to their wedding anniversary’, star Georgia Jay explained.
‘He calls the landline and asks for his whereabouts. Steph answers the landline and gets chatting to him and quite quickly discovers he wasn’t there. Ruby is in the room and snatches the phone off her, before she’s able to ask this guy many questions to try and put the pieces of the puzzle together – when was the invitation sent?
‘Did Anthony receive it? She’s trying to put a timeline together. Ruby shuts down the conversation really, really quickly. That just gives Steph another bit of scent to go on her way and realise that something is being covered up here.’
Donning her deerstalker hat and grabbing her notepad, a determined Steph continues linking clues together about Anthony and the people closest to him. She then makes an alarming discovery that changes everything, as she finds the gun Caleb used to confront Anthony hidden in the safe.
‘She doesn’t hang around and goes to confront Caleb’, Georgia said.
‘I think Caleb and Ruby come up with plans to go on holiday, something like that, and Steph comes straight out with it and confronts Caleb with the revolver. He is straight away very defensive and comes up with some story that it was used as a threat for Cain after he found out about Ruby and Cain together.
‘He’s quite quick on it and comes up with quite an elaborate story which has a bit of truth, so he’s quick on his feet to think of that.
‘That’s what draws Steph to go and check on the facts with Cain. Caleb has come up with this story but there are still flaws in it and things that she doesn’t believe Caleb would have done. She goes to Cain to have a down to earth conversation with him, to ask him straight out for him to confirm the story, so she can discover whether Caleb is lying or not.’
Despite it looking like Steph has made progress in this quest, Georgia admits her character reaches a point where she’s ‘fed up’.
‘I think she’s got to a bit of a d.e.a.d end. I don’t think she fully believes they killed him. The analogy I have is you can think something, but it doesn’t mean you believe it. So when you actually find out the truth it can really throw you. It’s like suspecting someone’s cheating on you – you might suspect it but you might not think it’s true. She just wants this thing solved and she hits a bit of a brick wall because Cain does confirm Caleb’s story.
‘So I think it’s one of those things where she doesn’t know what else to do, or who she can trust. It’s all closing in on her because she’s thinking who’s involved, who’s lying, who’s not, who’s covering up. She just sees it as a last resort to go to the police and throw her parents under the bus – but does she believe or hope that will happen? God knows.’
The star added: ‘I think she would definitely not throw her parents under the bus, that’s for sure. I don’t think she’d want anyone going down for it in that respect. In terms of being able to cope, I think that within the given circumstances you’re not going to want to rock the boat any more.
‘You’re dealing with something on such a large scale that sending people down for murder and trying to focus on that avenue wouldn’t really help you much.
‘It’s a hard one to answer because I don’t think anyone would cope massively well. I definitely think she would stay true to her family.’
