The following article contains spoilers from an episode of Emmerdale that hasn’t aired on ITV1 yet, but can be viewed on ITVX.

Marlon Dingle (Mark Charnock) is a desperate man in Emmerdale. Since discovering that daughter April (Amelia Flanagan) has become involved in Celia Daniels (Jaye Griffiths) and Ray Walters (Joe Absolom)’s drugs enterprise, the family have found themselves in an absolute nightmare.

They are under no illusions about what Ray and Celia are capable of, after Celia forced them to watch a live stream of Ray deliberately running Dylan (Fred Kettle) over. Dylan is now in hospital with life-threatening injuries.

Marlon’s plan for the family to flee together was thwarted by Ray, who reminded them that he had people watching them at all times.

In Tuesday (December 9)’s episode, Marlon had been up all night worrying about how to get out of the clutches of the drugs gang and keep April safe. He concluded that the only way was to pay off the debt that April owes Ray.

Viewers know that this ‘debt’ was created when Ray arranged for a package of drugs that April was delivering to be stolen. By making her think that she was working to pay off money that she owed him for her mistake, Ray has been able to control April and Dylan for months.

Rhona (Zoe Henry) doesn’t know this but she did know that paying off the debt wouldn’t solve the problem. Ray would keep moving the goalposts, she told her husband, and the debt would never be cleared.

Instead she had another plan. Why didn’t they tell Cain Dingle (Jeff Hordley) what was going on? If there was one person who wouldn’t be scared of Ray, it was Cain – who will do anything to protect his family if they’re under threat.

He could even bring in reinforcements, Rhona suggested. The Ireland branch of the family could be mobilised to help, and Ross (Mike Parr) would probably get involved.

It all sounded like a brilliant plan, but Marlon had some very valid reservations. They had no idea how big Celia’s operation was, he reasoned. And having seen what they were prepared to do to Dylan, and how Ray threatened Rhona, Marlon couldn’t countenance putting Cain’s children, Kyle (Huey Quinn) and Isaac (Bobby Dunsmuir), into that kind of danger.

So he went back to the plan of raising the cash – but this took him straight to Cain, as he asked him to sell his car as quickly as possible. Cain didn’t believe the story that Marlon was giving him about why he was in such a hurry for the money, so he called in on him later.

That’s when Cain caught Ray physically threatening Marlon in his house. After telling Marlon that the debt was £20k, Ray had told him that April would have to keep working until it was paid off, and Marlon lunged at him.