It is not about how long it takes to wolf a dinner down, it is not about what you want to apply to anything, as you keep making things up for people. It is only about what they claimed. Which was not running about at speed, was it now. It was not arriving home and dinner plated and ready to take outside, it was not about any rush at all, not a snifter of it. More so when they dragged SM into it.
It is not about DF's last gasp, it is only about lying, and it is about why those lies were in place. Nothing to do with a bad memory and everything to do with lying. Granted, It is all a bit hard to digest, helping and aiding, covering up and so forth, so here is something Jigsawman style, a hypothetical line of reasoning.
'What if, having set off on a certain course of action they believed that by doing certain things it would all work itself out? - A boy comes home with blood upon him, tells his mother he has just found his girlfriend dead. That he went to meet her in their usual haunt in the woods. He has been seen and knows the girls family are aware she had left to meet with him at this time. What is he going to do, he will surely be blamed. Mother is worried and decides to help dispose of the clothing, to put an alibi in place for that time. It is all they can do, he is going to be blamed anyway.
The brother arrives home and learns of what has happened, his mother is disposing of evidence, she is going to be in trouble. He however is not at all convinced of the younger brothers story. But for his mother he agrees to keep quiet, he does not want involved however in the alibi time and story.
He then tells the police something to try to avoid that time, he places himself home before his brother, the house is empty and rightly so, the brother is still in school. Has himself home a short while and leaves again. (The latter part true)
Three people within 24yrs are all implicated in a cover up. There is no going back so they continue as best they can, winging it, playing it by ear. Not master criminals and doing only that which they can. A mother helping her son and another son helping his mother?
Three days later and they are still sticking to the same tale. This time the brother is interviewed formally, the focus now around that crucial time and he is under pressure, so he says on repeat "I cannot remember" - He arrives home and relates this pressure around dinner, around the alibi time. Already implicated and exposing the other two by default, what to do now, what can they do? Still unaware of phone logs and CCTV, he is pressured into doing the only thing that seems best at this point, to tell the same tale as his mother, the same lies she had told the police -----
This in place it was time to deal with the missing clothing, believing that the strength in an alibi would surely have the police with nothing, the search had yielded nothing and they buy a new coat, foiled at the first hurdle, they were still being watched. Again, this winging it, playing it by ear, and doing the best they could to add strength to a story already in place.
There is a further warrant and again no charges made, they are under the full belief that the police have nothing. It is time to tell their version to the public, to start putting their life back together and they do an interview with the media. It backfires publicly, but they hear of a local person who is being very vocal and they ask them to help. To have something further/someone, to take their story, their version of what took place back into the community, to also have someone, their ears and eyes bring what is happening back to them. This person helps willingly.
Everything is very quiet, it really does seem that it has worked, there is not going to be any arrest, that aid, the cover up has worked, and it feels good, after all he only found the girl like that. Time for that final piece, the passage of time is surely safe now, and a replacement knife is bought.
Then that arrest comes, it had been far from over, that investigation had still being going on massively in the background. Although the Crown had made it clear in the August that they could not use the DNA, it was not going to be useful as evidence, the strengthening of that circumstantial evidence, the crossing of those T's and dotting those i's was still in place. They are all charged and the pressure upon the one with doubts, the elder brother is full on. Was he going to end up doing time for his younger sibling?
The trial, those charges dropped allowing them to testify against the son/brother. A reprieve to tell the truth, and he does. Those nagging doubts, and he is shown photographs and told, "This is what you are being asked to cover for ----" the brother then tells the court he had lied, that the reason for those lies, to fit with more lies, was by coercion of his mother, for his mother. He had neither seen nor heard his brother, no dinner, no mashing tatties, no mother and two sons together in that kitchen - The younger sibling was not home.
'
