Belfast people thankfully will be spared the sight of Sir Ronnie Flanagan committing hara-kiri outside City Hall.

On BBC yesterday he conceded the insensitivity of his remark on Wednesday evening about publicly committing suicide if Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan's report could be judged rigorous and fair.

It was a measure of the man that he apologised for his gaffe. But it was a reflection of "how deeply I felt that this was a flawed report", he added.

His comments generally were more measured and careful yesterday. He is standing back a little, as is Ms O'Loan. No harm in that, considering the razor sharp mutual exchanges of the past few days between the two main protagonists.

But this remains a very poisonous affair that has the potential to cause great political and security grief.

The Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland is still hurting at the depth, detail and force of Ms O'Loan's attack on the RUC's handling of the investigation into the Omagh bombing, which, as she said, was the worse single atrocity of the troubles, killing 29 people and unborn twin girls.

Most particularly it was a fierce assault on his leadership, which according to Ms O'Loan was "seriously flawed" and "defective". Sir Ronnie and the RUC, according to the Ombudsman, had let down the people of Omagh. It can be difficult to sleep at night with that creeping into your thoughts.

It was, however, amazingly opportunistic that a statement allegedly from the "Real IRA" to the Irish News yesterday claimed that the organisation had only "minimal involvement in this terrible tragedy". At least Sir Ronnie and Ms O'Loan agree that the people who really should have dread consciences are the bombers.

Ms O'Loan met the families on Wednesday before issuing her report. The Chief Constable has also been in touch with some of the families since then and plans to meet them again to give his case for the defence before publishing his response to the report. That may not now come until after Christmas.

Ms O'Loan and Sir Ronnie have known each other for years. In fact she lectured him in law when, as a senior RUC officer, he took a master's degree at the University of Ulster. No doubt this week he feels she is still lecturing him. They have enjoyed a reasonable working relationship. They are professionals. In tight spots, however, they have no compunction about wielding the knife, as was certainly evident on Wednesday in the case of Ms O'Loan.

There is a sub-text here. The establishment view, as represented by the British government, senior unionists and police officers and even some well-placed Catholics, is that Ms O'Loan has breached an unwritten protocol, that she didn't need to carry out this investigation.

She called herself into this case, as she is entitled to do, based on a Sunday People report about alleged RUC bungling of Omagh. "Why didn't she leave well enough alone?" is the establishment view. "Why run on the basis of a tabloid newspaper report?" "After all if Sir Ronnie had not been a real leader he would not have steered the RUC through the difficult transition to the Police Service of Northern Ireland," is the argument.

"If it wasn't for Ronnie Flanagan there would be no Police Service of Northern Ireland and no Police Ombudsman," was how one London mandarin explained it. And that is a reasonable point. As stated here before, the British government, and also the Irish Government, owe him a pretty big debt. That is why both the Northern Secretary, Dr John Reid, and Tony Blair have so far not endorsed her report.

Former Northern Secretary Peter Mandelson yesterday rallied to the Chief Constable's cause, describing Ms Loan's findings as "slightly vindictive". This raised suspicions in both the Ombudsman's office and elsewhere that he was speaking at the behest of Mr Blair.

In terms of navigating the police through difficult and emotional changes, Sir Ronnie Flanagan undoubtedly displayed leadership, and probably when the historians come to judge him it will be that quality that will have precedence over any flaws in his handling of the Omagh case.

But Ms O'Loan too has leadership qualities. She genuinely believes that she has a duty to Northern society in general and policing in particular to expose what she is convinced are empirically established and astonishing deficiencies in the investigation.

She is a thinking Catholic married to an SDLP councillor but no one can categorise her as being politically partisan. She has served on the Police Authority - which formerly held the RUC to account - an organisation which the SDLP and Sinn FΘin in equal measure distrusted and reviled. An Englishwoman she is of the establishment.

Yet, there is considerable surprise at the almost ruthless nature of her attack on Sir Ronnie and the RUC's handling of the Omagh bombing of August 1998. "Did she have to shaft Ronnie so savagely?" people wondered. The answer from a well-placed source was interesting.

Both players recognise each other as tough battlers in such situations, he said. Rather inappropriately he added, "Nuala O'Loan knows this is a Big Boys' game. If Nuala didn't do it to Ronnie, Ronnie would do it to Nuala, and they both know that," he said. (The entrance of the arch political Machiavellian, Mr Mandelson, into the drama probably demonstrates to her the proof of that conviction.)

The same source said that Ms O'Loan initially had been willing to "change the context of her report" if Sir Ronnie had been prepared to "throw up his hands and admit to faults in the investigation, and to say that amends would be made". By "changing the context" he meant that the report could have been presented in a more palatable form.

But that was not possible because Sir Ronnie just did not accept the extent of the criticisms. He now admits to some flaws, but is still reeling at the broad sweep of her case against him and the Special Branch.

There is more bile left in this affair. So far much of Sir Ronnie's response has been of the ad hominem variety, as in attacking the woman and not the argument. But if he is to have any chance of undermining her carefully researched claims he must respond in detail. "He must put up or shut up," to use the words of a supporter of the Police Ombudsman.

"The Chief Constable is confident he can prove the inaccuracies in this report," Sir Ronnie Flanagan's spokesman responded last night. This will run a while.