She may be on the other side of the world in Florida, but Sharon Watts’s (Letitia Dean) decisions have left Zoe Slater (Michelle Ryan) with another cause for concern in EastEnders.

Last week, the show revealed that Sharon was taking a trip to the States to visit her old pal Michelle Fowler (Susan Tully) after discovering that Zoe had lied about the father of her twins born in 2006.

As viewers will recall, Zo’ claimed that she’d conceived the children with Dennis Rickman (Nigel Harman) – Sharon’s adoptive brother turned hubby – two decades ago. She quickly fled the hospital after giving birth and didn’t wait to learn the fate of her daughter, who wasn’t breathing.

She later took handouts from Max Branning (Jake Wood) to find her missing son, but when they fell out, told the fib to Sharon in the hope she would cough up the cash.

Sharon was desperate to have some form of connection to Dennis again, and hired a private investigator to work on the case.

However, in today’s episode, they had some bad news.

Zoe was still recovering from an eventful Halloween, when she feared for her life after someone trapped her in the Queen Vic barrel store following a disturbance. We’re still none the wiser as to whether she imagined the ordeal or whether there was actually someone in there, but whatever happened, it was still enough to seriously spook her.

To make matters worse, her cat has now gone missing and she believes this is just another vile act from her tormenter.

Amid the worry, the PI summoned her to the caff, as they had an update on the case. They revealed that Sharon had withdrawn funding and the case was considered closed.

A mortified Zoe begged her to reconsider, hoping that she’d be able to give her some tidbits of information that would lead her on the right path to locate her child. Unfortunately, the PI wanted another £3k before they divulged.

Kat Moon (Jessie Wallace) tried to help but decided not to sell one of her business assets, while Alfie (Shane Richie) doubted her claims that someone was targeting her.

Could Zoe be making it up to gain sympathy?