Emmerdale spoilers: Charity Dingle cuts ties with Mackenzie Boyd – but tragedy follows

Charity Dingle (Emma Atkins) was at her wits’ end at the start of Monday (December 18)’s visit to Emmerdale. Mackenzie Boyd (Lawrence Robb) had stayed out all night and wan’t answering his phone when she tried to ring him.

Was he dead in a ditch? Or – and this was a very real fear for Charity – had he spent the night with somebody else?

He’s got form in that regard, obviously, and it’s clear that Charity doesn’t really trust him despite him claiming to have finally chosen her over Chloe Harris (Jessie Elland).

When he finally showed up he was a mess and had been drinking – and wanted to keep on drinking. Charity tried to put a stop to that, and demanded to know where he’d been.

Mackenzie’s in for a world of pain

Mack insisted that he’d spent the night on a park bench but when Charity wasn’t satisfied with that answer he cruelly goaded her. Was she worried that he’d slept with someone else and got them pregnant, he said.

Charity was incensed and as he walked out she told him not to bother coming back.

This was a nasty reminder of how the current situation started. Mack went off and slept with Chloe after a fall-out with Charity, and baby Reuben was the result.

After trying to make things work with Chloe, Mack finally realised it was Charity he truly loved, and a devastated Chloe took revenge by leaving the village and taking Reuben with her, vowing Mack will never see his son again.

Recently we’ve seen Chloe contacting her father, who turns out to be terrifying gangster Damon Harris (Robert Beck). She wanted him to help her get a new identity so she could vanish and Mack wouldn’t be able to track her or Reuben down.

In this episode, she was worried that Damon might have other plans in mind because she ‘knows what he’s like.’ She tried to row back on her previous harsh words about Mack and got Damon to promise that he wouldn’t do anything bad to Mackenzie.

Damon promised – but later we saw Mackenzie tied to a chair in an abandoned factory, blindfolded and gagged.

And we saw the only other person there was Damon, who is planning goodness knows what kind of nasty revenge, punishment, or deterrent.

Meanwhile back in Emmerdale, Charity was telling Gail Loman (Rachael Gill-Davis) that she’d had enough of Mack this time. She wouldn’t be trying to contact him, she said.

‘He’s well and truly on his own.’

Abandoned by Charity, will anyone realise the danger Mackenzie is in?