The first day of the Omagh bombing inquest has set a clear marker for the senior echelons of the RUC: the force's practice and procedure on bomb alerts will come under intense scrutiny.
Although the coroner for Greater Belfast, Mr John Leckey, has set out cautious parameters concerning the limitations of an inquest's powers of inquiry and findings, counsel for the next of kin of the victims soon demonstrated their intention to probe as deeply as they are allowed.
The first RUC witnesses to give evidence were the relatively low-ranking officers who had received the initial bomb warning calls and transmitted them onwards. But they were confronted with questions which subtly evoked comment and opinion concerning RUC policy and practice on bomb alerts.
As a result of questions raised, the RUC's legal representative has been sent off to seek master tapes of telephone calls; a highly sensitive issue has arisen concerning the extent of knowledge of accepted paramilitary code words at various levels of the RUC, and it has been suggested there was no guidance or training in the force on how to deal with bomb warnings.
In the coming days, before any relatives of victims take the witness stand, there will be detailed interrogation of increasingly senior RUC officers concerning the police response to the Omagh bomb warnings, and their actions following the explosion.
There is already some dispute concerning the precision of the various timings and locations logged by those officers and civilians who dealt with the initial phone calls.
There was confusion over the use of the term "Main Street" for the town of Omagh, as it emerged there was no street of that specific name. But locals nevertheless regarded the combined stretch of Market Street and High Street as the town's "main street".
This is not a Bloody Sundayscale inquiry, aimed at establishing the full and absolute truth of what happened, as the coroner made clear. Yet he will have great difficulty restraining the lawyers from pushing their cross-examination of witnesses to the limit - indeed some of the lawyers, such as Mr Michael Mansfield QC, are also involved in the Derry inquiry.
The families of the victims, in turn, are in two minds about the drift of events - on the one hand, they are anxious that the full circumstances of the deaths be revealed; on the other hand they are anxious that the responsibility for the deaths of their loved ones should firmly be placed on those who planted the bomb, whatever the apparent shortcomings in the RUC's response.
Everyone attending the opening of this inquest has already been made aware that, as ever, the devil will be in the detail.