Coronation Street does Indecent Proposal, only the villainous Mal Roper (Tim Treloar) is no Richard Gere as he makes Bernie Winter (Jane Hazelgrove) an offer she can’t refuse – without sending her husband to jail.
When Bernie was drowning her sorrows over the death of Billy Mayhew (Daniel Brocklebank) she never could have imagined that a night of drinking and drug talking with a stranger would lead to a nightmare stalker ordeal.
But this is Coronation Street. So of course it did.
Since then, Mal has stuck to Bernie like glue. He originally rocked up in Weatherfield to confront Roy Cropper (David Neilson) for being the pen-pal that wooed his mysterious wife Alice. But he soon got over his broken heart enough to go full Single White Fe-Mal (get it?) on poor Bernie, even taking a job as an electrician in Roy’s flat just to stay in her neck of the woods.
Bernie only has eyes for her doting husband, Corrie legend Dev Alahan (Jimmi Harkishin). Nothing untoward happened on the night she met Mal, other than a spot of less-than-legal pill-popping. However, try telling that to the unstable cable guy, who did everything in his power to get close to ‘his Bernie’.
Until Bernie rebuffed his advances. Then the unstable electrician started to suffer from faulty wiring of the brain.
When he turned nasty, Bernie was defiant and warned him to back off… or she would kill him.
Famous last words. Shortly after, Mal was beaten and left for dead.
Needless to say, the police pulled Bernie in for questioning. But the real culprit was her own flesh and blood, Cobbles copper Kit Green (Jacob Roberts).
After Bernie confided the full extent of her stalker hell, Kit furiously confronted Mal and beat his mother’s tormentor black and blue. But he fled the scene when Mal suffered a heart attack.
While Bernie wasn’t thrilled that her son got the red mist and beat her stalker senseless, she understood the depth of his feeling.
That may be about to change however, since Mal is wide awake, and ready to send someone to prison for his assault… only it’s not Kit.
Malicious is obviously more than happy to throw Dev under the bus if it suits his purposes, and upcoming episodes of Coronation Street will see Mal use his attack to get what he wants from Bernie.
While Dev is interviewed for the attack on Mal, a worried Bernie confides in her daughter Gemma Winter (Dolly-Rose Campbell) that Kit is the real attacker. The only way she can save her husband is to betray her own son. Reassuring, Kit explains to Bernie that there’s no evidence against Dev so nothing for either of them to worry about.
But that might not be the case. Later, everything changes when Bernie is horrified by a shock proposition from Mal.
At the Chariot Square, Ryan Connor (Ryan Prescott) watches Bernie with concern as she heads down a corridor, knocks on a bedroom door and disappears.
Asserting that just being in the same room as her means everything to him, Mal pats the bed for Bernie to sit next to him. Bernie tries to hide her revulsion, will she go through with Mal’s proposal?
