6 questions Emmerdale must answer about Lydia's baby death mystery
Details of her tragic past have been revealed
Emmerdale appeared to confirm Lydia Hart (Karen Blick) is the mother of the dead baby whose remains have been found at the local school as police began their investigation on Thursday 4th July.
Clearly rattled by news of the gruesome discovery, and hinting at a mysterious past in a conversation with Zak Dingle earlier in the week, Lydia is definitely hiding something.
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In the final scene of Thursday's double bill copper DI Bradwall handed a file to a colleague on 'Jennifer Finn', who they believe was the child's mother and disappeared from a local children's home - now the school - almost 30 years ago. Forensic evidence on how long the bones have been there also match the timeline. A close up on a grainy photograph then showed a teenage girl who looked very much like a young Lydia.
Finding out Jenny's identity begins to unlock the mystery of the buried baby, but it's left us with more questions than answers. Question such as…
Is Lydia's entire backstory a lie?
Kooky Lydia has talked a bit about life before she came to the village - we know she was married to a guy called Steve who died, and she suffered two miscarriages. But Lydia obviously isn't her real name and there's a secret tragic past we've barely scratched the surface of, so who's to say the details she's divulged about her backstory to the locals aren't all lies to cover up a dark, disturbing childhood? Did 'Steve' even exist? Did she bend the truth about the miscarriages because she lost a baby in another way?
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Who was the father of Lydia's baby?
Lydia, or Jenny, was in care when she fell pregnant which suggests the child was conceived in unpleasant circumstances. What if she was the victim of sexual assault? Abused by a care worker, or family member? Or abandoned by a fellow kid in care, a childhood sweetheart who felt they were too young for parenthood and left her heartbroken?
Why did Lydia run away and change her name?
The reason Lydia became Jenny must be linked to the baby incident, and the confirmed detail that she ran away from the children's home tells us she wanted to escape her life and literally start over. It's highly possible something terrible happened to her at the home that drove her to flee, was she in danger there? Assuming a new identity means she did not want to be found, perhaps by a specific person.
How did Lydia's baby die?
It's a pretty grim topic to speculate on, but one of the key questions nonetheless - did the child die of natural causes? Are the police embarking on a murder investigation and the soap kicking off a storyline about child killing? Did the baby have a medical condition and couldn't be saved? All possible upsetting scenarios leave us with a shudder.
Is Lydia related to someone in the village?
Being in care also has us thinking about Lydia's biological family - who were they? Why didn't she live with them? Was she an orphan? Did she have siblings also in care? And could her real relatives turn out to be residents of the village she secretly came to track down?
Will Lydia reveal what happened?
She's the only person who can explain what's going on, so let's hope Lydia opens up and reveals all. It could be an emotional confession to Sam, or she might bite the bullet and go straight to the police and admit she is Jenny Finn as they launch an appeal for more information.
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