If policing in Northern Ireland is to work, republicans must break with tradition and help catch Paul Quinn's killers, writes Gerry Moriarty.
The murder of Paul Quinn in a barn in Co Monaghan on Saturday has the potential to cause the sort of political damage that will fester.
That will be of no interest to the Quinn family from Cullyhanna in south Armagh who wait to have the battered body of their 21-year-old son and brother brought home to be waked and buried.
Family friend Jim McAllister, a former local Sinn Féin councillor - now disaffected from the party - says the Quinns are in a state of deep shock because of the murder. They didn't want to say anything last night beyond their initial statement on Sunday but, he added, they were holding to their conviction that members of the IRA beat him to death.
Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams in the most trenchant of terms rejected this allegation. Quinn was killed by "criminals", not republicans, he said.
He and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness and local Sinn Féin MP Conor Murphy could hardly have been more unequivocal yesterday in demanding that anyone with evidence provide that to the police.
"I would have no hesitation whatsoever if I had hard information of bringing that information - indeed it is a duty to bring that information - to the PSNI or An Garda Síochána," said Adams.
He believed that the attack on the victim related to an issue around fuel smuggling. PSNI chief constable Sir Hugh Orde, who briefed the DUP yesterday, told MP Jeffrey Donaldson there was no evidence at this stage linking the killing to the IRA, and that there were indications of a criminal link to the murder.
McAllister disputes this, saying he believes that Quinn was targeted because he had the temerity to take on two local republican figures in separate fights, and that some "senior republican player" decided he should pay for such audacity.
McAllister doesn't believe Quinn's assailants set out to kill him but somehow the "bloodlust" set in and he was battered to death.
The comments of Orde and also of Donaldson mean that for the moment at least this murder does not threaten the DUP/Sinn Féin-dominated powersharing government.
Junior DUP Minister Ian Paisley jnr was impressed with Adams's response. "The language in all this certainly helps; it helps considerably," he said. "This would not have happened a year ago, let alone ten years ago. Those sorts of comments are obviously very important."
But, he added, how events unfolded would be carefully scrutinised. If an IRA link to the killing was established then the implications for the fledgling Executive and Assembly would be serious.
It seems reasonable to assume that those who murdered Quinn are known to quite a number of people. For instance, the two men who were understood to have been forced to help lure the victim to the farm in Co Monaghan, and were themselves assaulted, must be in a position to provide police with considerable detail about the killing.
But this is south Armagh and notwithstanding the recent breakthrough of Murphy inviting senior PSNI officers to Crossmaglen to discuss antisocial activity in the area will the old tradition of local omerta continue to apply? Pressure will fall on Sinn Féin to in turn exert pressure on those with evidence to go to the police. Those with such knowledge may feel caught between a rock and a very dangerous place. The phrase "damned if they do, damned if they don't" comes to mind, especially in the context of the current dispute over the status of the killers.
But this is the new dispensation. This is a test of whether policing can work in the Borderlands. If it doesn't then we could end up with a situation similar to that pertaining after the murder of Robert McCartney: then the so-called dogs in the street knew who was responsible but so far no one has been convicted of his murder.
Numerous people spoke to the PSNI in relation to McCartney but the necessary evidence to nail the killers was not forthcoming. If the same applies after Quinn's death then notwithstanding the great political progress to date the question will be asked, does the writ of criminality run in south Armagh or do republicans have the influence to help bring killers to book?