Emmerdale has aired an unexpected update on Debbie Dingle – just three months after appearing to close the door on her involvement in any ongoing storylines.

Debbie plays an off-camera role in Monday’s episode, as she gets in touch with her dad Cain for a quick catch-up over the phone.

Now living in Australia, it seems that Debbie is having some second thoughts over turning her back on her entire family without warning…

“I’m surprised to hear from you, if I’m honest, Debs,” Cain says as he walks through the village on his mobile.

“Yeah, I wanna see you too, but I can’t just drop everything and fly out to Australia. If you felt that bad, you’d have made it to Nate’s funeral.”

He then adds: “Right, listen, I’m not promising anything but I’ll see what I can do…” So, is Cain heading off for a while?

Back in May, Debbie’s daughter Sarah wanted to confide in her and made a phone call to reach out for support.

Sarah believed that her mum was still living in Scotland, but Debbie dropped the bombshell that she’d just married her new partner Chris and moved to Australia.

When word got back to Charity Dingle, she branded her daughter “a little cow” for keeping quiet during the many months of planning and paperwork that would have preceded the move.

Emma Atkins, who plays Charity, later told us that the decision was made to explain Debbie’s absence from Sarah’s big storylines this year. Charley Webb made her final appearance as Debbie in 2021 and has often indicated that she has no current plans to return.

“I mean, they [the writers] had to do something, I guess! And that’s what they did,” Emma told Digital Spy.

“I guess that’s given me a sort-of maternal place in Sarah’s world. Because I’m playing the role that Debbie would have been playing – so for me that’s great.”