Emmerdale star Charlotte Bellamy says Laurel Thomas sees a side of Ray Walters she hasn’t seen before as the soap investigates his murder.

The 52-year-old actress has played the role of Laurel Thomas in the ITV soap for the past 23 years, and recently she became romantically involved with villain Ray Walters.

It was only revealed recently that Ray Walters and mum Celia Daniels had been grooming teenagers April and Dylan into doing drug runs in order to pay off their debts.

Things escalated when April confessed everything to Marlon and Rhona, and the villains ran Dylan over to show them what would happen if they told the police.

Not only that, but Ray and Celia were running a modern slavery operation on the outskirts of the Emmerdale village. Paddy Kirks father Bear Wolf was sadly a victim of this, and was killed by Celia.

Speaking of deaths, Ray killed Celia after she wanted to stop him from starting a new life with Laurel. Ray was left heartbroken when Laurel begged him to leave her alone after she learned what he had been hiding from her.

Recently, Ray’s lifeless body was shown being thrown into the back of Jai Sharma’s van. In a week of episodes, Emmerdale will show flashbacks for each suspect before finally revealing Ray’s killer.

When asked if Laurel had any suspicions when it came to Ray, Charlotte said: “No suspicions at all. There were a couple of times when the phone kept ringing, and she’d thought the ‘combine harvest business’ side of his life was busy, but she didn’t really ponder on it. She was so bewitched by him: She thought that Celia was constantly contacting him, which was often the case.”

Ray begs Laurel to listen to him

As Ray pays Laurel a visit before his death to explain how Celia treated him when he was younger, Charlotte teased: “Initially, she is so shocked she can’t comprehend the Ray she knew versus the Ray in front of her. He gets quite angry, knowing he will lose her, and she sees a side she hasn’t seen. However, he is genuine about his feelings for her.”

Other suspects being looked at are Marlon and Rhona, but spoilers teased that Laurel’s 18-year-old son Arthur gets himself involved by stealing Ray’s bag which leads to a violent confrontation…

A violent confrontation takes place after Arthur steals Ray’s bag

In terms of whether Laurel could really have killed Ray, the actress admitted: “She’s a woman of faith and she loved him. I don’t think the audience will think she could have done it, but they’ll have to watch and find out.”

Charlotte shared that Emmerdale really “pushed the boundaries” with this story, and added: “Soaps have a lot of villains, but Jaye’s character Celia went up a level because nothing was off-limits.

“Celia and Ray did things that were so cold-blooded, like real gangsters or drug cartels. It was really good that Emmerdale pushed those boundaries.”