DV has said, though, that he thinks the killer has been at liberty for the last 36 years - which would tend to rule out JD. But you're right, it is pretty extraordinary. It may also shed light on something else around DV's point.
He notes that there's a lot of evidence SJL was actually heading to the PoW, and suggests she's still there. He points out that
- her diary was on the fuse box,
- the fuse box was in the cellar,
- SJL was claustrophobic,
- three strides from the fuse box is a hatchway to an underfloor space,
- the visible debris under that floor dates to before 1987,
- there's a pile of it big enough to conceal a body,
- the permanent landlord returned to an epic bluebottle infestation,
- the pub was visited but not searched by the police because the temporary landlord said SJL never came,
- the police accepted this at face value, and
- their visit happened after the Mr Kipper story had been embedded, via press conference, which may explain why the police were more than usually credulous.
DV is equivocal about what happened at the PoW. He just notes that given the above, that she's never been found, and that there is insufficient evidence against the police's preferred suspect, it could well be someone else, not necessarily a murder; hence, search the bloody cellar already.
That is not to say the temporary landlord killed her (there's a lot DV clearly can't say), nor does he mention the James Galway sighting either. It's other people's inference that CV killed her, and that James Galway was CV laying a false trail. The obvious challenge to this is Wait, what? She walks in, CV kills her off the cuff because he just does, cool as a cucumber he hides her body, dumps her car and then adds to the false trail outside 123SR by telling a cabbie he just saw a couple having a right ruck? Really?
But if that's the
wrong inference, that 'James Galway' is
not CV - or any off-the-cuff killer at the PoW - but someone else, who looks like that and who did meticulously plan killings, well...
Perhaps so, but even if that's not what happened, it's an interesting datum point in any case. It could be another factoid in support of the idea that the police compromised their investigation by not getting basic facts right at the outset.
Once again, the detailed timeline is important here. Plod were alerted at 6.45 the previous evening, at which time everyone at Sturgis would have left for the day. The police may have stayed up to work through the night, but the witnesses certainly didn't. So the 10am press conference the following morning clearly preceded the taking of any statements from the office staff. The only information the police had was the finding of her car and from speaking to MG and HR. Despite this, they announced that SJL had been seen at 37SR, when the evidence is that she had not.
To borrow a phrase, "I have full confidence" that this
ex ante assumption informed the statements the police took
ex post. When they spoke to the office juniors, did the police ask if they specifically remembered SJL actually taking property details, or did they ask what a negotiator going to a viewing would normally take? If they've already decided she went to a viewing, you're going to get the same answer to either question, so it doesn't matter which you ask. If the latter was the question, or was the general tenor of the questions put to staff, or is what the staff thought they were being asked, then it's a full explanation for how MG could be both having lunch next door in Crocodile Tears, while also sitting at his desk at the same time.