Emmerdale has set up a ticking time bomb after Kerry Pollard covered up a huge scam in which Jai Sharma’s son Archie Breckle used Artificial Intelligence to create a fake voice that sounds just like Caleb and Ruby’s absent daughter Steph.
In tonight’s episode, Kerry’s boyfriend Jai was away, so Billy offered to help Caleb by drumming up some business. Caleb was impressed when Billy secured a client, making Kerry feel overlooked.
Later, Kerry was annoyed when Caleb questioned her work ethic after she told him she had to leave to pick up Archie.
When Caleb received a call from “Steph”, she said: “Dad, I can’t talk for long. But I really need your help. Any chance you could send me a bit of money?”
Caleb gave Billy his bank account password and asked him to secretly transfer £5,000 for a deposit on a London flat, telling him not to tell Ruby.
Meanwhile, Chas and Ruby discussed their children, with Ruby noting that Steph was in Thailand with her new boyfriend and that Caleb didn’t know, as Steph didn’t want him to worry.
As Kerry begrudgingly headed back to work from Farrers, Archie was seen listening to an AI copy of Steph’s voice that he had made.
After Kerry delivered an expensive computer Archie had ordered with Caleb’s money, she became suspicious. She later logged on to his computer, where she found the AI copy of Steph’s voice.
She also found the copy of the call with the head teacher, saying to Archie: “What the hell have you been doing?”
The pair had a heated discussion and Kerry discovered the fake bank account in Steph’s name. Archie told her not to worry as he had heard Caleb slagging off his dad several times.
Archie said he couldn’t pay the money back as he had spent loads of it, and Kerry said she was going to tell Caleb, saying: “You have just robbed my boss on my watch and I am not getting the blame for this as well, okay?”
At work, Caleb continued to belittle Kerry, so she opted not to mention Archie’s scam and left. She told Archie not to bother returning it, saying: “I want half the money.”
With Kerry telling Archie that his dad would be fired and that he would end up in a young offender institution if she told Caleb, what will Archie do?
