Tracy Shankley (Amy Walsh) is finally beginning to realise it’s awfully strange of Nate Robinson (Jurell Carter) to leave Emmerdale and never contact her again.

Because Tracy doesn’t know that Nate is lying dead at the bottom of a lake, it looks as though he’s left her to be a single parent to their daughter Frankie.

As a result of not knowing the truth, Tracy has grown to believe Nate doesn’t want to speak to anyone in the village. She spent months stealing money from the shop just to pay the bills or put clothes on Frankie’s back, unable to get by on her small wage alone.

In tonight’s episode, Tracy felt a pang of guilt when Frankie mentioned her dad again ahead of his birthday.

Tracy, at the time, was in the pub with a number of Nate’s family members. She reiterated that she doesn’t have any way of contacting Nate, and checked with the likes of Chas (Lucy Pargeter) and Aaron (Danny Miller) to see if they definitely don’t have his address.

But no one does, because Nate was killed by John Sugden (Oliver Farnworth) last year, and had his body thrown into the lake the limo crash happened on a few months ago.

In upcoming episodes, as Tracy fills Cain (Jeff Hordley) in on what’s been going on – or rather what hasn’t – since Nate left, Cain is prompted to immediately call his son. His call isn’t answered, but he leaves Nate a voicemail.

Nate’s killer John has the phone and while listening to the voicemail, he panics when Cain calls again. This time, he accidentally answers the call. He lets it sit there for a moment before he decides to end the call and is left overwhelmed by the magnitude of his own lies.

Having now made contact, Cain won’t give up, and he calls again. He tells Moira (Natalie J Robb) about the weird call, and she’s crushed for him, spurring him on to keep trying his son.

Cain later learns that Tracy doesn’t have Nate’s new number and is heartbroken to realise how his son has abandoned Tracy and his own child.

Cain makes a decision that will put the fear of God in John – he resolves to go to Shetland and drag Nate ba