If a police officer described the diary as 'salacious', but it didn't contain chapter and verse of SJL's experiences, what other information may deem it to be so described?
The "salacious diary" concept comes from DV, who describes his meeting with Stuart Ryan (possibly a pseudonym) of the Met. DV went to meet him along with his researcher, Caroline, and presents his case to Ryan.
DV sets up the meeting to show that the police are not interested in pursuing his theory. There are several themes that DV raises in the description of this meeting, mostly to do with the points he is making to underpin his POW theory. He also describes the conversation in such a way that makes Ryan look like he is not familiar with the facts of the case (or the facts as DV sees them-- he describes Ryan as "sounding a little defeated...he stumbled over the end of his sentence, seemingly unsure how to finish it..." DV describes the meeting in a way that suggests he thinks the police want to dismiss him, cover up what he has found.
It's a long description but here is the bit that is relevant to DV setting up this "salacious" concept.
DV first says he could have searched the POW himself, using the exact same techniques etc as the police but the reason he didn't was because SJL's sister asked him to share his findings with the Met.
"But as we tried to seek an explanation for this, Ryan's tone changed. He began to suggest that our investigation had fallen short of achieving anything, despite his admissions so far to the contrary.
It simply wasn't good enough, he said, that we were suggesting Suzy's remains could be under the dining room floor of the POW. In order to be able to say this, he claimed, we'd have to provide him with a motive for why whoever had killed her there had chosen to do it.
'There are key bits that you cannot answer in your hypothesis,' he chided. 'There are key bits in our investigation, which is public record, which you cannot account for in your hypothesis'- he smiled-'which knocks your hypothesis down completely'
'It's not a hypothesis,' I mumbled. A hypothesis is something more than a wild guess but less than a well established theory.
[Ryan talks about Suzy's car at this point, there is a lot of this chapter about whether there was a second house viewing that day]
"This letter makes it clear exactly... that we are not opening the investigation in terms of your hypothesis. If you identify the POW pub as a possible location,' Ryan continued imperiously... 'We will make it quite clear that from a police point of view that is, that it's inaccurate and unfounded'...but if you get the golden thread which suddenly changes everything"
So it wasn't unfounded, it was incomplete. And Ryan was now offering us some investigative advice.
[My note-- I think that DV is spinning this a bit. I think he's saying it's unfounded, but is trying to soften the blow a bit.]
"THe golden thread would be something like, was she seen going into the pub at 3 o clock that day?... was she actually seen going into that pub? Because we know for a fact, from CV and KF, that the pub was busy"
[So here DV has massively buried his lede. We learn that the relief landlord and his wife were interviewed, and that the pub was open that afternoon and busy. Except DV has an answer for this-- of course they would say that because (he implies, they are guilty innit?]
"That's what they've told you?" Caroline asked.
"We know that for a fact from them"
{this goes on a while longer then Ryan again says DV would need to provide a proper motive for the events]
"You would need to provide a proper motive for the incident rather than just was it because there was something salacious in her diary and she didn't want someone to take it and therefore she's tried to get it back and there's been an argument and someone's killed her"
It was a bizarre comment...we had never once speculated about the content of Suzy's personal pocket diary.
[...]
We knew that the police had somehow come into the possession of Suzy;s lost property from the pub after her disappearance....apart from the police and those at the pub we hadn't spoken to anyone who really knew she had even lost those items."
End quotes.
1." the police had somehow come into the possession"-- it's documented in AS that they went around to the pub the morning after she disappeared. THis is a bit disingenuous tbh. It's clear that others were aware about the POW because the police knew about it right off the bat. Ergo, she told someone, most likely her colleagues. This is not hard to work out. THe pub was so incidental to the disappearance story and it's decades later and her colleagues probably are not allowed to talk about what they reported to the police, but most likely they just cannot remember this.
2. DV is literally accusing the pub staff of involvement in Suzy's disappearance and death. He does need a motive and that is the diary, it is implied throughout his book. So the police officer here is not giving away secret evidence of the diary really being salacious, DV is jumping on this comment to make it seem like... ooooh the diary was salacious, ergo now we have a motive for the killing.
But yeah, he buries the lede. The relief landlord AND his wife were interviewed at the time and confirmed the pub was busy that afternoon. Open. And busy.
