Is EastEnders' Max turning Albert Square over to developers?

Oh, we’ve got a bad feeling about this – what has Max Branning got himself embroiled in?

The end of tonight’s EastEnders bus crash aftermath episode featured a cryptic chat between Max (Jake Wood) and a well-spoken stranger in the lofty viewing gallery of The Shard, and it sounded suspiciously like Max is hoping to flatten Walford and build all over it.

Something about the hush-hush meeting led us to believe that it was not exactly a respectable job interview when the stranger started talking about the deprived area he’d grown up in and the development that had happened there since.

Then he said to Max: “From what I hear, you’re going great guns,” and then congratulated him on his lack of emotional ties to his “connections” in Walford.

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Chillingly, he asked about the pub, to which Max replied: “That’s next on my list.” He added: “Let it burn for all I care.”

Oh, Max. Please don’t say this means you had something to do with the bus crashing into the market. Especially when as the meeting was taking place, Stacey was leaving him a voicemail thanking him for his help in saving Martin.

It looks like this is just the start of a world of trouble for Albert Square.