Although ‘witch’ might be too soft a term to describe a woman who traffics drugs, enslaves the most vulnerable people in society, forces young and vulnerable teenagers into sex work and both tortures and kills people. No Celia Daniels (Jaye Griffiths) is certainly far worse than a witch.

As the dark tendrils of her sickening criminal empire wrapped around village like those gross Stranger Things vines, ensnaring and trapping several residents and rendering them desperate, broken and traumatised, it seemed her reign of terror would never end.

Celia was a predator, pure and simple. She possessed an uncanny ability to zero in on somebodies weak point and mine it for all it was worth. Whether lavishing someone with love and kind words or threatening torture and death, she instinctively knew how to manipulate just about everybody and always managed to escape unscathed.

Well, almost always…

Ray Walters (Joe Absolom) stabbed his adoptive mum, seemingly to death after she dangerously miscalculated a situation. Celia poked far too hard and failed to realise the affection he’d grown for Bear Wolf (Joshua Richards) when she taunted her son with the fact she’d killed Bear.

Ray was a monster entirely of Celia’s creation. It can be presumed that Celia played a similar game with him that she did with April Windsor (Amelia Flanagan) and boyfriend Dylan Penders (Fred Kettle). By adopting him and ‘saving’ him from the streets, a debt was created, and he’d continue to pay it for the rest of his life.

With Celia confirming to Rhona Goskirk (Zoe Henry) that she’d been involved in crime since she was April’s age, it’s clear that Ray also grew up in the very same world; one of pain, violence and treating other people like property – to be profited off until they’re no longer useful, and then discarding them.

While Celia’s humanity had long since been locked in a box and forgotten about, she underestimated Ray’s propensity for guilt and desire for a crime-free life. When he fell in love with Laurel Thomas (Charlotte Bellamy) and let April go after Celia’s orders to kill her, the two came head to head, and Celia was left dead on the floor…

…or was she?

‘I said she wasn’t dead, I think she killed Ray’ Julia Goodhall posited on Facebook.

Yup, not long after Ray sunk a knife into mummy dearest, he also turned up dead, stiff as a board and colder than the other side of the pillow.

With a week of episodes dedicated to unravelling the mystery of how Ray ended up dead and discarded in a depot truck, several suspects have been announced by Emmerdale.