Means, motive, opportunity: Who killed Lucy Beale? (VIDEO)

It's been 10 months coming, but this Thursday EastEnders promises to finally reveal who killed Lucy Beale last Easter.

The beautiful, sexually voracious young businesswoman was found dead on Walford Common, apparently the victim of a mugging, but police soon decided the killer knew Lucy and was most likely a local.

The initial suspect was Lauren Branning's ex, alcoholic Jake Stone, but despite being charged and held on bail, new evidence cleared him of the murder.

That set in motion a chain of suspects being interviewed by police, while others like Max Branning and Jay Brown have made themselves suspects by destroying evidence and general shifty behaviour.

Who actually did it? All will be revealed on Thursday night during either the hour-long episode at 7.30pm on BBC1, or the flashback episode featuring the return of Hetti Bywater (Lucy Beale) at 9.30pm.

Meanwhile, watch our soap scoop preview of this week's EastEnders, above.

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.