Emmerdale’s Rhona Goskirk makes huge breakthrough as she strikes quite a deal with manipulative Gus Malcolms

Gus Malcolms (Alan McKenna) has hardly proved himself to be reliable since he first appeared in Emmerdale. He originally came to the village to try to persuade ex-wife Rhona Goskirk (Zoe Henry) to allow him to use some embryos they’d had frozen during their marriage to help him and his current wife to have a longed-for baby.

Rhona refused, but secretly Gus stole her passport so he could pretend she’d given permission to use the embryos.

If Marlon (Mark Charnock) hadn’t happened to see Gus and his heavily pregnant wife at the hospital, Rhona might have lived her life unaware that there was a child with her DNA in the world.

Since that discovery and Gus’s wife’s subsequent death the story has taken many twists and turns but one thing that’s remained consistent is that Gus can’t be trusted. On several occasions he’s lied to Rhona and gone back on agreements they’ve made to make her part of baby Ivy’s life.

She’s certainly tempted

Eventually in despair Rhona fled the village with the baby. Her trial for kidnap ended in her being found not guilty, but the trial was a scarring experience made even worse by Gus’s willingness to portray her in as bad a light as possible.

When he turned up in Monday (April 15)’s episode offering to allow Rhona and Marlon to have custody of Ivy if, as expected, he was sent to prison for fraud, Rhona was naturally suspicious and sent him packing. Marlon worried she’d regret that and by Tuesday (April 16)’s episode he was trying to persuade her to have a rethink. It might be their last chance to get Ivy back, he reasoned.

So they met Gus and he said that the worst case scenario for him was that he could be sent to prison for eight years, during which time Ivy would have to be in care unless Rhona agreed to have her.

As usual with Gus there were strings attached. He wanted Rhona to give a victim impact statement to help reduce his sentence. Rhona was understandably wary of agreeing to this as she’s been tricked by Gus so many times before.

Eventually he said, ‘Forget the statement. Ivy is going to need her mum.’ This is the first time he’s acknowledged Rhona as Ivy’s mum, previously saying he’ll always think of his late wife Lucy as her mum.

Marlon was inclined to trust Gus, but Rhona wanted to put things on a legal footing so she got Ethan (Emile John) involved. They told Gus that Rhona was prepared to stand up for him in court but in return they wanted him to sign Ivy’s primary care to Rhona while he’s in prison. This means that she will be the child’s legal guardian.

Gus agreed to all this and Ethan said he’d draw up the papers and they’d meet the next day to sign them. Gus even agreed to bring Ivy and let Rhona spend the morning with her.

Everything Rhona has wanted is just within her grasp – but will there be more twists to this tale?