with the factory in fiscal crisis and redundancies being made, karen's guilty conscience gets the better of her and she tells mike everything. mike drags joe into the office and lets him know that he's uncovered the whole scam. karen overhears joe telling mike that the only reason he started a relationship with karen was so that he could use her for forging cheques. karen is hurt and angry. to joe's horror, karen gives mike a list of every detail pertaining to artrec that he requested and tells him that she's transferred all the money they stole from him back into his account. to avoid being a laughing stock in the rag trade, mike agrees not to call the police but tells joe he never wants to set eyes on him again. joe and karen row as joe packs his things to leave. karen wants to know if he ever loved her at all, to which joe coldly replies that she had her uses, before leaving weatherfield.