BLACKMAIL is a terrible thing.

Especially, as secret lovers Chas and Cam will tell you, when you don’t have the cash to satisfy the person demanding money with menaces.

The shadow of Carl, the tallest man in soap, is casting a long shadow over the lives of the couple in Emmerdale (ITV1). He hasn’t forgiven Chas for jilting him at the altar and taking all his money, but now he possesses a potentially explosive piece of information.

He has proof that Chas and Cam had been enjoying a sexual picnic, ie rolls in the hay.

This is inconvenient for them as Chas, a girl who doesn’t hang around when it comes to marriage, is set to wed Dan Dan the comedy man any week now. She has, you might think, got over Carl and Cam very quickly.

Anyway, Carl wants hush money, so Chas hatches a plan to steal from her employer, Woolpack landlady Diane. She feels a bit guilty about it, but hey, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do to keep her guilty secrets secret.

As a plan it’s hardly the great train robbery. More like the great till robbery.

Come closing time, Chas pretends to be drunk so she can let Cam in the back door and he can take the takings which will be there for the taking. Of course, it doesn’t quite work out that way.

Then Carl makes a shock confession. No, not that he wears high heels and isn’t really the tallest man in soap. He tells Chas that he still loves her and that they should be together. What is it about Chas and the opposite sex? They flutter round her like moths to a flame. Perhaps it’s her perfume – the waft of best bitter that follows her around after a night behind the Woolpack bar. Shocks too in Coronation Street (ITV1) as Maria kisses Marcus. Nothing odd there, you might think, just a case of boy kisses girl. But Marcus, as we know, is gay and Maria, last time we looked, wasn’t a boy.

A health scare brings them together.

Maria, who’s been harbouring secret feelings for Marcus, suddenly kisses him. Rather than push her away with the comment “not today thank you”, he puckers up and responds with more lip-locking. Where is this leading? And what’s the name for it?

The Street’s randiest pensioner Ken Barlow thinks his bus pass entitles him to hitch a ride on the coat tails of any passing female. Old flame Wendy Crozier has reappeared in his life and already he’s lying to wife Dreary Dierdre.

Ken’s been made chair of Bessie Street Primary School governors and Wendy sits on the committee (and his lap if she has her way). The pair go for a drink to talk about old times, but Ken unwisely lies to his wife about the meeting, little realising she knows he hasn’t been with whom he claims to have been.

Teen mum Lola has a secret too in EastEnders (BBC1). Only she knows that Evil Ben, who killed Big Hev, is the father of baby Lexi. That makes her Fill the Fug’s secret granddaughter.

This news could be just the thing to pull Fill out of his depressed state. He might even smile, although the idea of Fill the Fug going “coochy-coo” to a baby is not a pleasant thought. Thankfully Fill has other things on his mind. Like chucking Alfie and Kat out of the pub after deciding he wants to take charge again. He’s even installed an old bird behind the bar. Not Mum Peggy but another famous bust – the one of Queen Victoria that used to adorn the Walford pub.