Cain hid his brother from the Dingle family for 30 years (Picture: ITV)

After the shock appearance of Caleb Milligan (William Ash) in last night’s Emmerdale we were left with so many questions about how Cain (Jeff Hordley) could have concealed the fact that he had a brother for 30 years.

These questions were brilliantly answered in tonight’s episode when flashback scenes that took us back to 1991 revealed what happened when Caleb first tracked his brother down.

Caleb (played by Riccardo Drayton in the flashbacks) was born in prison while Faith (Sally Dexter) was serving a sentence. The product of an affair, Faith didn’t want anything to do with him and he grew up in care. All he had were a photograph of Faith and his birth certificate.

In 1991 he found Cain (young Cain was played by Aiden Kane), who was already working as a mechanic. Cain was taking parental responsibility for Chas (Maddy Barker) by this point after they both escaped the vile, abusive Shadrach. Cain told Moira (Natalie J. Robb), in scenes set in the prison, that the day Faith had left them with Shadrach was the day she became dead to him. He said he coped by pretending to himself that she was dead – so when he told Caleb that she was, it didn’t feel like such a lie.

Chas told her brother that she was pregnant, with the baby who would turn out to be Aaron. At this point Cain had been about to introduce Caleb to her.

Chas met Caleb last night (Picture: ITV)

In the present day, after some initial hesitation Chas (Lucy Pargeter) accepted that Caleb was telling the truth and he was her brother. ‘I bought you a chocolate bar,’ he said of the time they were due to meet. ‘It was all I could afford.’

The meeting never happened because Cain changed his mind on hearing about Chas’s pregnancy. He told Caleb to leave, which was shattering news for him because he missed out on the chance of being adopted by a nice family because he hoped to be a part of his real family.

He jumped into a car and raced off. Cain jumped in the passenger seat and it wasn’t long before they were being chased by the police. When Cain found out that Caleb already had a criminal record he took the fall for him – much as he’s doing with Kyle (Huey Quinn) now – and told the police he was driving. He told Caleb to stay away for good.

The flashback allowed us to learn just who Caleb is (Picture: ITV)

The worst part, for Cain, was that as he faced his first stretch in prison he told Chas, who was now several months pregnant, to move in with Gordon, the father of her baby. And we know that Gordon Livesy was a vile abuser too. Cain blamed himself for moving her from one monster – Shadrach – to another.

It’s a hugely complicated story but very cleverly weaves in so much of what we know of Cain and Chas with a whole new back-story that fits with their characters and brings a whole new character into play.

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Chas wasted no time in ringing the prison to speak to Cain. ‘Guess who’s just had a lovely family reunion?’ she told him. Cain warned her not to trust Caleb, but Chas was fuming that he’d hidden their brother from her.

‘What’s in the past stays in the past,’ Cain said.

‘Not any more,’ said Chas. ‘That past has just caught up with you.’

Oh, the drama!

This has changed everything.