salisbury mill

I think it's time for a question or two around the official timeline of events on 4th March. As I have mentioned previously, many of the appeals regarding the timeline were in connection with what happened in the morning of that day, since Mr Skripal's and Yulia's phones were both switched off, and at the time of the appeals, neither was apparently able to talk.

As I also never tire of pointing out, Sergei and Yulia have been awake and doing well for months now, and so it wouldn't take the world's greatest detective to work out what their movements were on the morning of 4th March. Just a simple, "So, Sergei, what were you doing on the morning of 4th March" would probably do. Perhaps this question has been asked, but if a response was forthcoming, it has not been shared with the public, which is odd, since it's information like that which can actually help jog people's memories and lead to new information.

The timeline after the morning is fairly well established. Here's how the Metropolitan Police put it in their official timeline on 13th March:
- 13:40 - Sergei and Yulia arrive at the Sainsbury's upper level car park in The Maltings
- The pair go to The Mill pub in Salisbury
- Approximately 14.20 - The father and daughter eat at Zizzi restaurant on Castle Street
- 15:35 - They leave the restaurant
- 16:15 - Emergency services are called by a member of the public to the bench where Sergei and Yulia are slumped on a bench.
That all seems fairly straightforward, does it not?

But what I want to do in this piece is to air my doubts as to whether this it is actually correct. In fact, I definitely know that some of it is at least deficient, since it does not mention the fact that Mr Skripal was feeding ducks with some boys near the Avon Playground (in The Maltings) at 1:45pm - something which was captured by CCTV.

But my current inclination is to think that there is more than this which is wrong. As ever, I will do my best to explain why, with the added bonus that in doing so, I will also suggest how what I think is the true timeline of events makes sense of one of the most puzzling bits of the whole story.

But before I get on to the details, let me ask you a question: if you go out for a meal and a drink, do you:

A) Go for the drink first, followed by the meal or
B) Go for the meal first, followed by the drink?

In an entirely unscientific sample (basically my family), when I asked this question the answers were resoundingly in favour of "B". As I say, it was anything but scientific, but the responses were so emphatic that I take it that there may well be something in it. Normally, people would probably want to eat and at least line their stomachs, and then go for a drink afterwards. The exception to the rule might be something like a late-night curry, or the like, after drinks. But two people going out to a restaurant in early to late afternoon? Perhaps the Skripals do things differently, but I think you'd ordinarily expect meal then drink, not the other way around.

It's always nagged at me a bit that the official timeline given out by the Metropolitan Police had the pair visiting the pub first then the restaurant. There seemed to be something a little odd about it. However, I've tended to treat the visit to the pub as a bit incidental to the whole thing - that is until I took a stroll with my family into the City Centre and happened to walk past The Mill.

It is still boarded up, and the big question is why. Is it still being decontaminated? Perhaps, although on the occasions when I've walked past it, I can't say that I have seen any of the chaps with the HazMats there, doing their thing. Again, that's not exactly a scientific observation, but it comes coupled with the nagging doubt: would it really take that long to decontaminate it?

In any case, none of the area between The Mill and Zizzis has been closed off since 4th March. Those two venues have been closed off, but not the pathway between them, which includes the Market Walk. As you can see in my somewhat crudely put together map below, people have been free to walk between the two venues (as represented by the blue line) all along, which takes in Market Walk. The only places that have been closed off in the area have been The Mill and Zizzis, and of course The Maltings park (represented by the red translucent shape) (the pathway the other side of The Maltings, alongside Sainsbury's was also open for pedestrians throughout):
salisbury skripal map

Why is that, since the Skripals almost certainly walked that route on that day, one way or t'other, and there were suggestions that they may have had military grade nerve agent on their shoes? Surely in the interests of public safety, that whole area should have been shut down for decontamination. Yet it was not.

Anyway, walking past The Mill reopened my nagging doubt, and caused me to look up some of the reports from the very early days of this case. I would say that all the ones I came across from the first few days mentioned Zizzis first, and the Mill second. Many of them are explicit that the Skripals went into the pub after the restaurant - not the other way around.

For instance, here is how The Sun put it in an article on 6th March:
"Skripal, 66, and Yulia, 33, were yesterday critically ill in hospital as counter-terror officers took charge of the inquiry. They are investigating a theory that a Kremlin assassin may have spiked the pair's drinks in a pub. Officers yesterday took CCTV from inside The Mill. They had gone into The Mill pub following a meal in a Zizzi restaurant."
Of course, my point here is not to give The Sun anymore credibility than it deserves, nor to claim that the early reports were necessarily correct. There are bound to be things that investigators and journalists get wrong and which need correcting later on. However, I believe that those early reports probably were correct, and not just because my unscientific sample of people said that people eat first then drink. There is another very good reason.

There were a couple of reports from witnesses in the pub. Here's one, reported on in the Guardian:
"A worker at the Mill said Skripal and his daughter came into the pub on Sunday afternoon, enjoyed a drink and a laugh and left together. 'All seemed completely normal,' he said."
So no signs of anything wrong or untoward at that time. However, another report from 9th March in The Mail gives us more details:
"Sergei Skripal went for a drink with his daughter at 3pm at The Mill in Salisbury after eating at a Zizzi Italian restaurant. In the pub, they ordered two glasses of wine before Mr Skripal went to use the toilet. The witness, who did not want to be named, said that when he returned he appeared as if he was drunk. He said Mr Skripal and his daughter Yulia then left immediately without finishing their drinks.

'I didn't really notice them when they came in,' he said. 'They got their drinks from the bar and sat down. After a short time the man went to use the toilet. They are upstairs. I noticed him when he came back down as he wasn't walking properly. He looked like he was drunk. I thought the staff might have to ask him to leave. He came back to the table and didn't sit down, he and the woman just left straight away. It was strange, but it makes you wonder now if the poison was starting to take effect then.'

Mr Skripal and Yulia were found in a 'catatonic' state on a bench around the corner from the pub just after 4pm, and rushed to hospital."
So again, we have the claim that the drinks were after the meal, not before. We also get a specific time for the pub visit - 3pm - which is interesting.

But the crucial part of it is the claim that Mr Skripal appeared to be drunk, and that this may have been a sign that he had succumbed to whatever it was that poisoned him (although there is no mention of Yulia appearing to be drunk, even though they are said to have collapsed on the bench simultaneously, or thereabouts).

Now, the reason that it is unlikely that the two of them went on to Zizzis after this, as the official timeline puts it, is that there is no mention in the witness testimony from that restaurant of his being drunk. He was agitated, it was said, but not drunk.

In a previous piece, I explained how the fact that Mr Skripal ordered food and ate it was compelling evidence that he had not succumbed to the effects of any poisoning at that time. Very simply: if you happen to be feeling the effects of nerve agent poisoning, the chances of you wolfing down Risotto pesce with king prawns, mussels and squid rings in a tomato, chilli and white wine sauce are as near to nothing as makes no odds.

I also quoted this piece of witness testimony in that piece:
"He [the witness] added: 'He didn't seem to have to wait long for his food. I noticed him first because they were sitting by themselves, and because he was an older man with a younger woman, and because he was losing his temper. 'He didn't seem ill physically, but perhaps mentally ill with the way he was shouting.'

The witness said other than appearing angry, there was no sign that either of them were ill [my emphasis]."
So in The Mill, Mr Skripal "wasn't walking properly" and "looked like he was drunk." In Zizzis, he was losing his temper, but there were no signs of physical illness.

Now, I don't know about you, but I can tell a drunk when I see them. And if someone is angry because they are drunk, then that's even easier to tell. It seems obvious to me that if Mr Skripal was angry because he was drunk, the witness would have picked up on this, especially if he was not able to walk properly. But despite the fact that he was apparently not able to walk properly in The Mill, the witness makes no mention of this in Zizzis, and goes out of his way to assure the interviewer that were no physical signs of illness.

Put all this together, and what do you get?

I would suggest that the original reports were correct. Mr Skripal and Yulia went to Zizzis first, The Mill second. Furthermore, as I pointed out in the piece linked to above, the most obvious explanation for his agitation and his hurry to leave was because he had an appointment to keep. However, in that piece, I had assumed the timeline of The Mill to Zizzis to the Bench, and so wrote that he perhaps had an appointment at the bench.

I have now changed my mind on this, and believe that the sequence of events was more likely Feeding the Ducks to Zizzis to The Mill and perhaps onto the bench after that. Which leads me to suspect that whatever happened, it happened at the pub, not the bench.

But what of the couple walking through Market Walk? Here's where I think this revised timeline could help to explain a number of things which have long been a puzzle. There are a number of significant things about the CCTV footage of that pair. These are as follows:
1. The couple seen in the footage are almost impossible to make out clearly.

2. However, they clearly are not the Skripals.

3. They are walking towards The Maltings (and therefore the bench), from the Zizzis end.

4. Other than footage of Mr Skripal's car, this two seconds or so is the only CCTV footage released of people in connection with the case from that day.

5. This is odd, because there is a CCTV camera outside Market Walk which takes in Zizzis (Figure 1 below); one in the Market Walk itself (Figure 2); one at The Maltings end of the Market Walk, which almost certainly takes in the bench (Figure 3); and one on the top of the Sainsbury's building, which takes in the duck feeding area, and possibly the bench as well (Figure 4).
salisbury skripal

6. The woman is carrying a red bag, and it is known that Yulia also had a red bag with her - at least she did at the time that Mr Skripal was feeding the ducks.

7. No manhunt was ever made for this couple.

8. The police never made it clear publicly who they were and that they had been ruled out of their enquiries. Rather, the two were quietly forgotten about.

9. The police took this footage from the gym, and showed it, but oddly enough what was shown wasn't even the original film, but film of a screen showing the footage (which at least partly explains its poor quality).

10. The thing which has puzzled most people about this odd footage, is the fact that both people appear to look in the direction of the CCTV camera. This in-spite of the fact that it is located in Snap Fitness and is not clearly visible to pedestrians.
Given all that, I would suggest that the timeline being changed from the original Zizzis, Mill, Bench to Mill, Zizzis, Bench, may well answer all those 10 puzzling points. I submit that the pair may well have been decoys; not ending up going to the bench, but merely employed by someone to appear for 2 seconds, on grainy CCTV which nobody can properly see (even though clearer footage must exist from the other cameras), walking from the direction of Zizzis towards The Maltings, to look up at a particular camera, and then to disappear, never to be seen again, leaving everyone very puzzled. And what would be the point of this? Why, to cause everyone to forget the original timeline of Zizzis, Mill, Bench, and to instead accept an alternative timeline of Mill, Zizzis, Bench. It's telling how the sequence of events in the media and in the official timeline changed shortly after this bizarre footage was released.

If there's anything in this (and it is just a supposition), all I can say is that it worked. Speaking personally, the fact that this couple, who aren't even the Skripals, were walking from the direction of Zizzis to the bench, focused my mind on the idea that the Skripals went to the pub first, then the restaurant, before going to the bench. Yet, I think that given the early reports, plus the testimony abouf a "drunken" Mr Skripal in The Mill who can hardly walk not matching the account of Mr Skripal in the restaurant, the proper chain of events is this: the Skripals fed the ducks, then they went to the restaurant, and after this they went to the pub.

Of course, release of non-grainy CCTV footage not filmed off a monitor could either confirm or utterly dispel this theory. But in the absence of that, it seems to me quite plausible. And although I don't know what it means in terms of what ultimately happened, it does suggest one very significant thing: the pub may well be way more important than the restaurant and the bench. Perhaps that is why it is still boarded up.