There may be a major clue as to who killed Nate Robinson on Emmerdale, and it’s been right under our noses all along.

Amid speculation John Sugden or Caleb Miligan are to blame for his secret murder, past scenes on the ITV soap might be the right place to look. His death was only revealed last week after the limo crash, that claimed the lives of Leyla Harding, Amy Wyatt and Suzy Merton.

Before Amy died she found a body under the lake, after she fell through the ice. She noticed some clues on the corpse that left her convinced it was Nate.

Amy died before she could relay the message about Nate’s grim fate, and we got the further confirmation we needed when Tracy Robinson left her ex Nate a voicemail, and the camera panned back to the body. It’s yet to be revealed what happened to him and who killed him, before they dumped his body, wrapped and chained in a sheet, in the lake.

But if fans cast their minds back to the episodes following Nate’s final scenes, there’s actually some chilling clues. What we know is that Nate had been accused of sleeping with his stepmother Moira Dingle, sparking a violent showdown with his dad Cain Dingle.

He was also dumped by partner Tracy Robinson, with no one believing his innocence. But Nate headed, beaten and bruised, to the farm to have it out with Moira.

He was stopped by John though who advised him he would make matters worse by doing so, with Nate agreeing with him. It’s then that Nate decided to push ahead with his move to Shetland, wanting nothing to do with Cain or the village.

We never saw him again and it was presumed that he’d simply left without saying goodbye, which was pretty strange and fans were suspicious. John was the one who broke the news to everyone that he’d gone, and it was the next week that ‘Nate’ texted Tracy asking her not to call him, saying he would talk when he was ready.

He seemingly cut off all contact with his family and Tracy has still yet to hear from her ex, with fans now knowing it was never him sending messages in the first place. So who killed Nate? Well, the episode that aired on Thursday 12 September after the barn explosion and after Nate’s disappearance seems to hold a lot of clues.

We may have the evidence needed to prove John is the killer just from this episode alone. Everyone caught up in the fire at the farm were at the hospital getting checked over, except for John who remained in the village despite choking from the fumes.

He refused to be checked over until Tracy happened to come across him choking and got Dr Liam Cavanagh to assess him. This scene is actually quite damning and could be the one that proves he murdered Nate.

In the scene Tracy walks over to John’s open camper van and as she does, she complains of a burning smell. As she approaches John he sees her and looks panicked, before slamming the side door of the van shut and leaning against it.

He looks quite shifty, but it’s actually what his face is doing before he sees Tracy that is the big “giveaway”. While everyone is at the hospital, John is stood staring into his open van with this look of horror or stress on his face.

He’s staring at something in his van almost preparing to do something until Tracy arrives, and that’s when he quickly shuts the door and moves away from it almost as if to keep her away. He then prepares to drive off somewhere and appears annoyed when Tracy calls for Liam, realising he has to leave his van.

John was actually AWOL with his van when the explosion hit the barn, only arriving afterwards it seemed as Mackenzie Boyd tracked him down with his quad bike. Had John been somewhere disposing of the body after killing Nate, with John being the last person to see him and being the person who revealed Nate had fled after all?

The scene in the village post-fire could have been him staring at Nate’s body or evidence of his crime, preparing to cover his tracks. Was he about to head off to get rid of Nate only to be stopped by Tracy?

Something else that happened with Tracy and John might also be a major clue, as John quickly told her Nate was not at the farm and that he’d left, mentioning Shetland. When Tracy admitted she thought she would at least get a goodbye John told her: “Sorry,” to which she said: “It’s not your fault is it.”

But what if it was his fault, and he’s apologising for killing Nate? In the flashforward the body was dumped at night – if this is Nate’s body, so did he manage to sneak off that evening?

John was also super keen to leave the village around this time too, so is it because he’d just murdered a resident? Maybe we need to calm down, or are we on to something?