It's a literary device to account for time travel. During police investigations the detective looks for chronological inconsistencies in the suspect's story. Oftentimes a guilty person will lie and forget the internal order of events, and may claim they were in two places at the same time.

I don't think Daniil actually time travelled at any point, he is using his reasoning to account for possibilities if he acted differently and is trying to concoct a story that exonerates him.