There were many in the North who wished Denis Donaldson dead, writes Brian Rowan
So, after the killing of Denis Donaldson, all of the talk and the biggest question is around the issue of who carried it out. The place is awash with theories. There are many possibilities, but up to now no one has produced the answer of all answers.
It is much too soon to be definitive. Was it the IRA? Was it the dissidents? What about the securocrats, or could it have been some maverick, renegade, republican individual or individuals who decided that Denis Donaldson should not live beyond the public confession he made last December?
The security hunch here in the North is that the IRA leadership did not sanction this killing. Why would it risk whatever slim possibility there is of making political progress in the near future? Why would it throw away the initiatives of last year - the ending of the armed campaign and the acts of decommissioning? Why would it play into the hands of Ian Paisley and his party - particularly at this time? And why would it do it with another report from the Independent Monitoring Commission just around the corner?
"I can't see who this benefits," a senior PSNI officer said. "It has to be maverick."
It is in this direction that the security assessment here in Northern Ireland is leaning, but it is not an assessment that is based on hard facts and knowledge. It is the stuff of hunch - nothing more than a gut feeling.
Inside the republican community there were many who wished Denis Donaldson dead.
As news of the shooting broke at teatime on Tuesday, one source remarked: "There would be no shortage of people prepared to shoot him." Indeed, in the words of this source, they would have been "queuing up to do it".
But asked was it the IRA? he replied "definitely not". Others would not be so definite. It is a time for open minds - a time to wait for more pieces of the jigsaw and for the picture to become clearer.
Denis Donaldson lived and died in a murky world. He was a player in the so-called "dirty war" and he died because of the agent confession he made a little more than 100 days ago. We do not know what secrets he was keeping, but we knew that he had enemies and that there were those who wanted him dead.
"On the eve of Bertie and Blair, somebody decided they were going to make best use of Denis, alive or dead." This is a republican hinting that the hands of the securocrats are on this murder. But that theory is dismissed as quickly as the suggestion that the IRA leadership had some part in this killing.
Denis Donaldson's worth to the Special Branch and the British security services was the political intelligence he provided on Sinn Féin. For about 20 years he was their human listening device inside the party.
An intelligence source put it this way: "He wasn't part of the Adams kitchen cabinet, but he was close to it."
He said Donaldson was "always uncomfortable" in the role of agent. "We just couldn't get military stuff out of him," the source added.
Whatever he told was too much for his one-time republican comrades, and the Donaldson confession of last December condemned him to a life and a death in the wilderness.
He leaves behind many unanswered questions. What is clear is that even in our developing peace, there is no safe place for the agent. The outing of Denis Donaldson cost him his life.
Brian Rowan is former security editor for the BBC