NO-ONE expected anything but an adept performance from Peter Robinson when he appeared before Stormont's finance committee.
The first minister has maintained all along that his involvement in the Nama deal was completely above board and that Martin McGuinness was kept abreast of developments.
He used Wednesday's appearance to reiterate these points, though having described former Harbour Commissioners chairman Frank Cushnahan and Tughans' managing partner Ian Coulter as "pillars of the establishment", there may be some future questions about the DUP leader's character judgement.
It appears Mr Cushnahan was still on Nama's northern advisory committee while he was meeting a US investment fund to discuss the sale of the bad bank's Northern Ireland loan portfolio.
Mr Coulter was also part of the meetings involving Mr Robinson and then finance minister Sammy Wilson, which were arranged without the knowledge of Martin McGuinness.
Asked whether Mr Cushnahan's dual role constituted a conflict of interests, the first minister disagreed.
The DUP leader was unable to tell the committee who organised this May 2013 Stormont meeting with Pimco and declined to speculate whether it amounted to an unsolicited offer to buy Nama's northern assets.
There was a general sense that where detail was needed none was available because such "meet and greet" encounters weren't as a rule minuted.
Details of meetings and the sharing of information figured prominently in yesterday's proceedings.
Mr Robinson was keen to debunk Martin McGuinness's suggestion that the deputy first minister was "kept in the dark" as the deal evolved.
The DUP leader pointed to four pieces of evidence to support his claim, including emails, official minutes from the Republic's Department of Finance and text messages between his and his Sinn Féin counterpart's special advisers.
Choosing his words carefully, Mr Robinson said he was keen not to give the impression that Mr McGuinness had "deliberately lied" to the committee but that it was the DUP leader's duty to "set out the factual position".
For its part Sinn Féin seems to have moved its position from insisting the party was completely out of the loop to the less definitive "not fully briefed or engaged".
In isolation, Mr Robinson's evidence shone little light on what one of his own MLAs once described as a "dirty scheme".
The contributions from the thus far elusive Frank Cushnahan, Ian Coulter, Sammy Wilson and Simon Hamilton would illuminate matters to a much greater degree.
There's also an argument for improving MLAs' interrogation skills, as the committee's overall failure to faze the first minister at any stage suggested his account of the deal was never properly challenged.
