Yesterday's appalling murder in Lurgan has added a further sinister undertone to a political situation that was already shifting from grey to black.
Perhaps the most telling indicator of the state of affairs on the post-agreement landscape in the North came last week in the unilateral decision by Dr Mo Mowlam to extend the deadline for the executive's creation to the week before Easter.
The First Minister-designate, Mr David Trimble, was apparently unaware even that a postponement was being considered until the announcement was made last Monday. Similarly, Sinn Fein leaders did not know an extension was proposed.
But most worrying of all is that the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, the leader of one of the two sovereign governments which were party to the Belfast Agreement, was neither consulted nor told of the decision in advance. The first he heard of it, apparently, was on Monday evening, when he was informed of the announcement by a Sinn Fein staff member who happened to be in Government Buildings due to his party leader's meeting with the Taoiseach.
There is an issue here relating to the spirit and the letter of the Belfast Agreement. The Declaration of Support at the beginning of the agreement document states that the governments of the United Kingdom and of Ireland affirm "their commitment to the principles of partnership, equality and mutual respect as the basis of relationships within Northern Ireland, between North and South, and between these islands".
In the Dail on Tuesday, Mr Ahern attempted to play down the matter, telling the Labour Party leader, Ruairi Quinn, that he did not wish to "make much" of the issue. But the Taoiseach's personal feelings are not really the issue: it is a question of the respect due to the Prime Minister of a State which is supposed to be an equal partner to the agreement.
This is an ominous and, indeed, familiar-feeling development. What it signifies is that we have regressed to pre-agreement conditions, in which the British government believed itself to be the sole repository of authority in matters affecting Northern Ireland. It would appear that the British government now regards the agreement's commitments to equality and mutual respect as mere rhetoric or padding.
Perhaps this was made unavoidable by unionist behaviour. The Belfast Agreement sets out in precise and logical fashion the series of events which were supposed to unfold following the referendums. These mechanisms were deliberately designed to trigger themselves, one by one, as the process was followed in accordance with what had been agreed.
The problem is that one party to the agreement, the Ulster Unionist Party (in particular its leader, Mr Trimble, who held the key position of First Minister-designate), opted to seize the process at a particular point to try to squeeze further concessions from an already ratified and solemn agreement. This immobilised the agreement's internal mechanism, thus stalling the process.
And so, with the battery flat and the vehicle immobilised, someone needed to get out and push. Given that the British government remains in the driving seat until such time as the executive kicks in, it was appropriate that the Northern Secretary should be the one to do so; but it is also indisputably the case that this, in effect, signals that the agreement process has been returned to square one, and that, moreover, the British government has reverted to type.
This might perhaps have been anticipated on the basis of a close reading of the agreement. Just a few days after the signing, in the midst of that post-Easter orgy of celebration, I received from a reader a lengthy analysis of the agreement which, for all its cogency and depth, I considered a little too pessimistic at that historic moment.
The thrust of the analysis was that the Belfast Agreement would not work because it was too one-sided: Irish nationalism had once again allowed itself to be placed underfoot.
One section of his analysis suggests that the Irish electorate was required to accept fundamental constitutional change without any corresponding demand being made of the British people.
Another drew attention to the language and nuance of the agreement, particularly the fact that, throughout the document, the word "British" always came before the word "Irish". Thus, "the British and Irish governments", "British-Irish Council", "British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference" and so forth.
These may seem trivial points, but they were, by my reader's analysis, cumulatively indicative of the deeper mindset affecting all parties to the agreement and therefore permeating the whole agreement. At the time, I confess, I thought some of these points pedantic. Now I'm not so sure.
Recent events have caused me also to revisit my own earliest response to the agreement. Last Good Friday afternoon, just as the earliest indicators about the agreement were emerging, I wrote an article for this newspaper which, as it turned out, could not be printed for lack of space. Oddly enough, because the article was rather pessimistic in tone, I was secretly relieved about this at the time.
Such was the mood of euphoria over that Easter weekend that anyone who dared to doubt that this was the most historic moment in recent Irish history was being shot down in flames.
One newspaper, the Sunday Business Post, carried a somewhat sceptical and pessimistic leading article, drawing attention to the price being asked of Irish nationalism in return for relatively little. The editorial writer was duly excoriated by all and sundry. Though relieved that someone else was being kicked for a change, I was also nervously aware that the Sunday Business Post leader had been less emphatic than my own article, which included the following:
"Even if the quality of the cross-Border institutions and other elements of this package could be guaranteed, this would still be a bad bargain. And the only thing that can be guaranteed is that unionism will renege on every element of this deal that it can conceive of testing or unseating. In the end we will have surrendered the most central principle of our collective existence as a people: the inalienable and indefeasible belief in the unity of land and hearts on the island of Ireland . . .
"The implication of the proposed change to Article 2, which is that the Irish nation is a mass of people of no fixed abode, rather than a spiritual relationship between the island of Ireland and the people who inhabit it, is not simply the denial of an aspiration; it is a repudiation of reality. It amounts, in a word, to a lie. We are, of course, quite free to insert lies into our Constitution, where they will find several more of their kind patiently waiting, but we should not imagine that by doing so we are contributing to the furtherance of peace on this island."
In the wake of yesterday's murder in Lurgan, I wish I was wrong more often.