Storylines
Carl was the first member of the King family to arrive in Emmerdale as the new driver for Tate Haulage. However, no one knows that he is a spy, reporting back to his family business, King & Sons. Carl learns what Tate Haulage plan to bid for a new contract and, with this information, his family revise their bid and win the contract.
Despite being married, Carl flirts with Louise Appleton and she agrees to a date until Carl's wife, Colleen, arrives and informs Louise that she is Carl's wife and mother of his children; Thomas and Anya before telling Carl not to come home. Louise slaps Carl and cancels the date so he moves into Holdgate Farm with his family but is "persuaded" to go up and do some repairs to the roof, despite his fear of heights. Local postman, Paul Marsden helps him and seeing his nerves about heights, starts teasing him and mucking about but stretches too far and falls, dying instantaneously. Not wanting people to know they were involved, Carl and his brothers, Jimmy and Matthew move his body to the back garden of the cottage Paul shared with his his wife, Siobhan. She finds him and assumes he fell from their roof after fixing the television aerial.
Meanwhile, bonding over feeling like bad parents for abandoning their children, Carl becomes close to Chas Dingle and tells her about Paul's death. They start dating but the relationship is rocky and they constantly split up and reconcile but during one break, Carl has a one-night stand with Chloe Atkinson. When she finds out Carl and Chas are back together, she decides to split them up permanently. She starts a campaign of poison pen letters and undermines Chas's trust in Carl, succeeeding in her aim and he reconciles with Chloe but soon tires of her and tries to end it so she tells him she's pregnant, despite the fact that she isn't and starts trying to get pregnant before Carl discovers the truth. Chas discovers Chloe's lie and forces her to tell Carl the truth, that she isn't pregnant and never was. Before leaving the village, she reminds Carl that she could be pregnant as they weren't taking precautions. Horrified at his mistake, Carl tries to reconcile with Chas but she refuses to even consider the idea before leaving to join the army so Carl starts dating her cousin, Delilah. Realising that Carl wanted Chas, not her, Delilah encourages him to fight for Chas so he tracks her down and declares his feelings, accidentally dropping her after picking her up and breaking her leg. Consequently Chas is discharged on medical grounds and reconciles with Carl and he proposes marriage but Chas refuses, until he does a wing walk to conquer his vertigo. They move into Home Farm with his father Tom (Ken Farrington) and Chas becomes Jimmy's personal assistant.
Tensions erupt when Matthew and Jimmy's ex-wife, Sadie King, declare their feelings for each other, move in to Victoria Cottage together and start a rival company. Matthew uses Carl to pass Jimmy false information so he loses an important deal while Tom and his fiancee, Rosemary Sinclair (Linda Thorson), tell Carl that Chas is not good enough for him and on learning that Chas has been passing information about the Kings to Jamie Hope, whose sister died in the King's River Showhome disaster, Tom bullies/bribes Chas to end things with Carl. Chas, however, encouraged by her cousin, Eli, tells Carl the truth on Tom and Rosemary's wedding day and Tom dies, later that day, after falling from his bedroom window and his sons are the primary suspects. The brothers are stunned to learn that they have a half-sister, Scarlett, daughter of their mother's nurse, Carrie Nicholls. Carl struggles to bond with her and he and Matthew try to buy her share of the business. Carl eventually softens but is uncomfortable around Carrie, as they had a brief relationship when he was a teenager but is grateful when Carrie helps evict Rosemary from Home Farm. Tom leaves Home Farm Estates to Rosemary and divides the remainder of his estate between his children. Hari Prasad (John Nayagam) tells the police that he heard the King brothers discussing how they murdered Tom and Louise, his girlfriend, backs him up but the case collapses when Louise admits giving a false statement. After the acquittal, Carl admits to Jimmy and Matthew that he killed Tom. He reveals that he confronted Tom about Chas, hitting him when Tom called Chas names and then pushed him away, causing Tom to fall out of the window.
Carl begins dating DCI Grace Barraclough in secret, unaware of her determination to find out who killed Tom, but Carl won't say. Grace ends their relationship and Carl gets drunk, telling Jimmy and Matthew about their relationship so Jimmy takes Carl abroad to clear his head. However, on his return, Carl gets arrested for drink driving to get closer to Grace and tells her that he killed Tom and decides to confess. Jimmy watches as Carl and Grace go to the police station and as Carl stops to answer his phone, Grace carries on and is hit by a lorry. Grace dies and despite telling the police that he is a killer, the police ignore him as they are more concerned about Grace.
Carrie's daughter, Lexi, visits her sister and becomes involved with Carl. He joins De Souza Enterprises, angering Matthew. Donald De Souza appoints Carl MD of his business, disappointing his daughter, Anna. Carl hires Lexi to be his PA, but discovers she has been passing information to Matthew and ends things with her. Carl and Anna are attracted to each other and he is jealous of her relationship with Matthew and reconciles with Lexi, but when he tries to end their relationship, Lexi reveals she knows that he killed Tom. Donald buys Mill Cottage for Carl and he and Lexi move in together. Donald dies and Matthew tells Carl that he refused to give him his heart medication, knowing the guilt Matthew will live with, urges him to tell Anna but he refuses. When King & Sons is declared bankrupt and the bailiffs move in on Matthew and Anna's wedding day, Carl is furious to learn that De Souza Enterprises wrecked King & Sons's chances of survival and that Matthew will have an interest in the company as he is married to Anna, Carl blames Matthew for everything and reveals the truth about Donald's death to the congregation at the wedding, leading to a fight between him and Carl and Matthew drives a van at him. However, on seeing Anna standing with Carl, he swerves and is thrown through the windscreen, dying on the road.
Carl realises his only assets are Mill Cottage and a mortgage he gave Debbie Dingle and begins pressuring her for money. Carl, Jimmy, Lexi and Scarlett manage to scrape enough money together to start a new haulage company. Carl tells Chas that he still loves her, but she insists they are history. Lexi proposes to Carl and he accepts, she sets a date but Carl goes missing on the day. He meets Chas and asks her to reconcile but she turns him down so he marries Lexi but is furious to discover that she has stopped taking precautions without his knowledge, He reluctantly agrees to have a baby and Lexi gets pregnant but miscarries almost immediately as the pregnancy is ectopic. She then learns she is unlikely to conceive again without IVF and Carl agrees to try because he feels guilty but soon changes his mind. Nicola insists that Carl tell Lexi this, which he does, and they argue. She also argues with Nicola and Nicola goes into premature labour after falling down the stairs. Lexi apologises and Nicola forgives her. Later, after a nurse gives baby Angelica to Lexi while Nicola is in the shower, she takes her up on to the roof, simply wanting to show her the world but on seeing Lexi sitting on the roof with baby Angelica, making Jimmy, Nicola and Carl panic that she is going to jump. Carl tries to talk her down and is forced to admit that he does not love her so she returns the baby to Jimmy and Nicola and leaves the village. Carl moves out of Jimmy and Nicola's house and he has sex with Chas. Carl tells Chas's partner, Paddy Kirk (Dominic Brunt), about her infidelity and they get back together.
Carl begins an affair with Eve Jenson (Suzanne Shaw). Chas proposes to him and implies she is pregnant. Carl accepts and gives her money to organise the wedding and ends things with Eve but on the day, Chas reveals Carl's affair with Eve to the village and humiliates him. Carl becomes bitter towards Chas for stealing his money and is accused of starting a fire near her house, which engulfs the village and kills Terry Woods (Billy Hartman) and Viv Hope (Deena Payne). Carl is arrested but later freed. He and Chas have a one-night stand months later and he comforts her when her son, Aaron (Danny Miller), is charged with murder. Carl borrows money from Scarlett to hire a lawyer for Aaron but when Aaron refuses to take it, invests it in his business instead. Disgusted, Scarlett discovers what he has done and leaves the village. Carl is caught speeding on CCTV and he convinces Rodney Blackstock (Patrick Mower) to take his speeding points for him, in exchange for a job. The police reveal that a cyclist was hit during the incident and Carl is shocked when he learns Rodney could go to prison. Rodney blackmails him into giving him money and a job. Jimmy discovers what is happening and confronts Carl. Carl discovers Chas has been having an affair with Cameron Murray (Dominic Power) and begins blackmailing them both for the £30,000 that Chas originally stole from him. Carl slowly becomes unhinged and obsessed with Chas and starts pushing people away from him including his own brother, Jimmy. Carl asks Chas to run away with him and she agrees during the night of her wedding Carl is engage in a fight between him and his brother. However, after she marries Dan Spencer (Liam Fox), Carl realizes that she has no intention of being with him. He then corners Chas and confesses that he killed his father for her, Chas who is disgusted, attempts to flee but Carl pushes her down and tries to rape her, but she hits him over the head with a brick, injuring him and runs off. Cameron finds a weak Carl and they argue. after Carl tells Cameron he will never be able to kill him because he is indestructable Cameron then picks up another brick and hits Carl over the head once again, killing him. Carl's body is discovered the following morning by Adam Barton (Adam Thomas) and Victoria Sugden (Isobel Hodgins).
Read more about this topic: Carl King