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Kim Tate (Claire King) finds herself in a mad dash up to the hospital next week in Emmerdale as a confrontation between the Queen of Home Farm and secret daughter DS Thea Ramsden (Chelsea Edge) turns fatal.
In a showdown that’s been looming ever since Thea arrived in the village to strike vengeance against the mother that she feels abandoned her at birth, the two come to blows over the kidnapping of baby Tate.
Initially, Kim turns to Thea for help, though asks her to not involve the police, primarily due to the fact that Joe Tate (Ned Porteous), his dad, has no idea that he hasn’t been officially adopted as is, in fact, hiding out in a cottage with Graham Foster (Andrew Scarborough).
‘She can’t believe it, she doesn’t know if it is kidnappers wanting some ransom or whether somebody in the family has taken him,’ Claire explains.
‘She is in complete panic mode, so she has to ring Graham immediately and find out what’s happening. She can’t go to Joe, because she and Graham aren’t supposed to have the baby in the first place.
‘She’s very reluctant to involve the police because obviously Joe would find out.’
Enter Thea…
‘She does confide in Thea, and she’s hoping that she can trust her, and tells her likewise ‘please can you keep this between us for the moment?’ Thea then tells her ‘I will, unless it escalates to the point where I have to let my fellow policemen know.’’
It’s not long, though, until Kim starts to suspect that Thea herself is behind the kidnap.
‘Thea turns up and at first, Kim doesn’t think it’s her at all, then Kim suddenly thinks ‘oh my Gosh, it’s Thea’.
‘So she tries to run and escapes, she hides, but Thea comes through the back door before she can bolt it.
‘As she’s running round the tables, she slips and Thea manages to grab hold of her. In a panic, she’s thinking ‘I am going to get hurt’. She just happens to stumble across a sharp cheese knife, and in her panicked state, she stabs Thea.’
The consequences are immediately apparent to Kim: ‘The knife has gone in, she’s not bleeding out but she does pass out.
‘Kim is in total panic mode, she doesn’t know whether she can save her or not, obviously if something happens to her, the worst case scenario, she dies, Kim could end up back in prison.
‘Thea has been stalking Kim for along time so she knows that she could do her harm.
‘This is the worst case scenario now because Kim thinks that Thea will actually get her back and put her in prison.
‘It’s how Thea is going to respond to this in hospital when she gets treated.’
How would Kim feel if she learned she’d just plunged a knife into her daughter?
‘She’d be absolutely beside herself if she realised that Thea was her daughter at this point,’ Claire admitted.
Reflecting on how they’ve gotten to this point, she added: ‘The whole reason she and Graham agreed to take Baby Tate was because of the fact that she had to give her daughter away all that time ago.
‘It’s brought up all these feelings from the past, regrets, and all the rest of it, she just refuses to let Joe do the same.’
On the softer side Kim’s being showing, Claire said: ‘She’s mellowing but mainly because we’ve been seeing a lot of children about and babies and the horses, those are the things that make her soft.
‘But underneath she’s still got a steely hard core and a very ruthless side.’