Belle (played by Eden Taylor-Draper) left the village after her boyfriend Lachlan White (Thomas Atkinson) was revealed as a serial killer on Emmerdale.
The harrowing storyline saw Belle beaten and terrified of the twisted teenager as she fought to get away from him in the major woods climax, ultimately ending up with the police taking Lachlan to prison.
Belle was run over as a result, and in the weeks and months after her ordeal on the ITV soap, she struggled to move on from the awful events.
This week the promising A-Level graduate finally returned to the Yorkshire Dales after some much-needed time away with her mother Lisa Dingle (Jane Cox), but her peace was shortlived.
Last night’s wedding between Jessie Grant (Sandra Marvin) and Marlon Dingle (Mark Charnock) culminated in the return of her troublemaker son Billy Fletcher (Jay Kontzle), who was released from prison early.
But while Aaron Dingle (Danny Miller) was angry to see his bully in the flesh once more, someone had broken in and ransacked the Dingles’ country cottage.
Belle, Lydia (Karen Blick), Sam Dingle (James Hooton) and young Samson all returned home from the wedding together to see their cottage destroyed, but in a confusing twist it didn’t appear as though the burglar had actually burgled anything.
And as the foursome explained their situation to the local police, something wasn’t quite right.
Belle’s creased brow clearly showed something was up, and if she doesn’t know what’s happened she might suspect it was something to do with her ex-boyfriend Lachlan.
Fans then fleshed out the theory, with one person even suggesting Lachlan had hired someone from inside to go and break in for a specific item.
Taking to Twitter, viewers discussed the possibility.
“@danielroxheaps Possibly Lachlan’s doing (since he is due back soon!) #Emmerdale #BoxingDay,” one person suggested.
Another wrote: “I’m thinking Lachlan trashed Wishing Well cottage or more likely he had someone do it for him. I would think someone would be alerted if Lachlan himself got out. #Emmerdale.”
“Whoever broke in must have been looking for something specific to not take anything, but what? #Emmerdale,” a third queried.
While a fourth simply asked: “Who trashed the Dingle’s house? Lachlan? #Emmerdale.”
“Bob is definitely the burglar #Emmerdale,” a fifth then added.
Elsewhere in the village, Aaron finally started to confide in his husband Robert Sugden (Ryan Hawley) about Billy.
“Billy – he was evil, they all were,” Aaron said with a shiver. “There was a gang of them…”
“Jason’s lot,” Robert pressed, as Aaron struggled to recall the memories.
“Billy kept himself in the background most of the time, didn’t want to get in trouble I suppose. But he was still part of it. Just had this way of staying under the radar, but he’d never let up.
“He had this look to make you hate yourself.”
Robert tried to get Aaron to tell someone, but the scrap yard worker was convinced no one would believe him. Will anyone listen?
