Meanwhile, amongst the many cards from Stingray’s many friends, Harold found a business card from a spiritualist, Terrence Chesterton. Plagued by dreams in which Stingray had his back to her and wouldn’t turn around, Sky decided to contact Terrence, and was delighted when he channelled the energy from some of Stingray’s possessions and passed messages on to her. Though open to the idea of an afterlife, Harold was concerned that vulnerable Sky was simply being taken advantage of, at her lowest point, and he insisted on joining her when she met Terrence again the next day. Sceptical Harold’s mind was swayed a little when he met Terrence and realised that he was a respectable young man from a good family background, who was training to become a lawyer in order to help the less fortunate. And when Terrence mention Harold’s Christian beliefs, having apparently been told nothing about Sky’s granddad, then announced that Stingray had befriended Harold’s late wife, Madge, Harold found himself forced to accept that perhaps the man was genuine.

After realising that Paul wasn’t her secret admirer, and had only been going along with it in order to get her into bed, Pepper found herself confused over who was sending her the gifts. But when a cake was found on the doorstep, with eight candles on it, Pepper suddenly made a connection between the mysterious calls with the children laughing. She opened up to Rosie about a painful incident in her past, in which, at the age of 17, she’d fallen pregnant to her high school sweetheart, Kevin Casey, only to miscarry three months later. Kevin had believed that she’d terminated the pregnancy, and the pair had never spoken again, and the baby would have been eight years old. Pepper realised that she was going to have to speak to her dad, who’d had no idea about his daughter’s pregnancy and, at first, was upset that she hadn’t felt able to confide in him. But, realising that his daughter needed his help, Steiger looked into it and found that Kevin had disappeared several years ago and nobody knew where he was. Meanwhile, the next chilling gift turned up on number 30’s doorstep – an inflatable clown holding a message telling Pepper about a children’s party in the park, that she was invited to…

Home from their travels, Karl and Susan were stunned to learn about Stingray’s death, and Susan immediately headed off to offer Janelle a shoulder to cry on. Before long, the pair were at the bar, where Susan opened up to Janelle about her own problems – namely the fact that she was torn over whether to tell Karl that he was baby Holly’s father. Janelle pointed out that she’d lost both Anne and Stingray in recent months and would do anything to have just a few more days with either of them, and Susan finally broke the news to Karl. Initially upset with Susan, Karl realised how difficult it must have been for her, and got in touch with Izzy, who announced that she would rather Karl played no part in Holly’s upbringing but, when she was old enough, she would be given the option of getting to know him. But, later in the week, Izzy had a change of heart and asked Karl to be a part of Holly’s life. He then stunned Susan by leaving to go back to London for a week, insisting that it wasn’t easy for him, but he had to take the chance to meet his daughter.

Elle was also in a quandary this week, with Paul and Ned both pulling her in opposite directions. But, having made the decision to leave with Ned, Elle was alarmed when he dad tried to hide her passport, so she wouldn’t be able to get too far. With Ned’s words echoing in her mind, Elle announced that she wasn’t going to become another victim of her twisted father and she left. But she and Ned hadn’t gone far before she started to have second thoughts, so he was forced to convince her of Paul’s evil by telling her about some of the stunts Paul had blackmailed him into pulling off. Realising that her relationship with Dylan had only ended because of her dad, Elle was horrified and decided that she would go home, but only so she could work out a plan of attack to get her revenge. So, whilst Ned headed off to Oakey, Elle returned home, telling ‘daddy’ that she couldn’t face being apart from him, before secretly meeting up with Oliver to fill him in on everything that had been going on (conveniently leaving out the part about nearly killing him and Carmella with a bomb).

Notes: Monday’s episode (5181) saw the opening titles updated to remove Dylan and Stingray. The updated sequence can be viewed, here.