Hollyoaks spoilers follow.
Hollyoaks has aired a tragic twist for Ste Hay amid his conspiracy about his late husband James Nightingale, in the show’s latest episode.
Recent episodes have seen Ste theorise that James is still alive, after overhearing Rex make a mysterious phone call and finding one of James’ ties on the Love Boat.
His investigation became more desperate this week, as he dug up James’ grave and was shocked to discover that his urn was empty.
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In today’s episode, Rex was seen packing a balaclava and a crowbar into a bag, suggesting that he was up to no good.
Ste spied on him from outside of the garage and watched him meet up with a man who wanted Rex to sort out a problem for him – in exchange for an envelope of money.
As Grace confronted Rex outside about switching number plates on stolen cars, Ste secretly investigated inside the garage and found not only the bag of materials, but a stack of paper notes on the desk.
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Meanwhile, Leela and Lucas were shocked to find out that someone had trashed James’ grave, and Leela reassured him that Ste would never do something like that.
Ste arrived and told his family that a serious crime has been committed, but while Leela thought he was talking about the grave, Ste was in fact referring to what he had found out about Rex.
At his grief counselling session, Ste explained his theory that James was still alive and was being held captive by Rex.
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He showed the counsellor the empty urn as well as the pile of notes with messages written by James, saying he is trapped and asking Ste to help him.
The counsellor told Ste that while his theory sounded unbelievable, there was too much evidence to ignore, and she advised him to hand in the notes to the police.
He explained that he was going to get close to Rex, so he lets his guard down, and he can find out where James is being kept.
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But Rex has nothing to do with James, as the phone call Ste overheard was to Robbie, to discuss the pair’s dodgy dealings.
That evening, Ste told Lucas that his session had gone well, but when left alone, he laid out all the paper notes on the table – and it was revealed that most of them were actually blank.
Is Ste’s theory about James all in his head?
Hollyoaks airs on Mondays-Wednesdays with its Channel 4 streaming premiere at 7am, then an E4 broadcast the same night at 7pm. Full episodes are also released on YouTube a week after their Channel 4 release.
Selected omnibus episodes are available via Prime Video.
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