IT got a little tense in the Culture Committee of the Scottish Parliament yesterday.

But it is fair to say the small tremors of anger felt in Room 5, as some of the leadership of the Glasgow School of Art answered questions from MSPs, are nothing to the anger felt in many quarters over the second disastrous fire, which overran the Mackintosh Building in June.

Anger, and, of course, disbelief.

And disbelief, speculation and guesswork prosper where there is a dearth of facts. We are all still in wont of key answers: how did the fire start, and where did it start? Who was to blame? Was it arson, or accident?

We are none the wiser today, and indeed it is not the job of the committee to investigate those keys facts - the police and fire service are doing that, right now - but to try and probe the Glasgow School of Art's handling of their precious building.

So the committee's convenor, Joan McAlpine led the way, and there was much talk of building voids (not all of them were, or apparently could be, closed), sprinkler or mist suppression systems (never operational: twice), and, in a key point, whether the School as a whole had neglected the old building in favour of some sleek and expensive estate development (which was denied).

There were some interesting factual nuggets in the exchanges, noticeably from Liz Davidson, the senior project manager of the Mackintosh Building Restoration, who was an excellent witness: clear and concise and knowledgeable.

Yes, she said, the GSA used a room on-site, but no, there was no cooking equipment in it, apart from a microwave and a kettle. Both had been tested for safety. Everyone who worked there were subject to authority of contractors Kier, she noted.

No one from the public was visiting The Mack on the day of the June fire, or indeed had visited that week, Ms Davidson said.

As perhaps expected, Muriel Gray, chair of the GSA board, was confident, defiant and, in a sharp exchange of words with Annabelle Ewing MSP, combative.

Ms Ewing asked why and how visitors to the Mackintosh Building were allowed to "mill about".

Ms Gray, who later said with some eyebrow-raising confidence that she had no regrets over the way the GSA had treated the building, said no one was "milling about". "There was no milling around on a construction site of such importance," Ms Gray said.

Until the fire service and police report, likely in the early months of 2019, the blame for the fire will be hard to cast with any real definition.

Sometimes the outcome of decisions are felt long after they are made.

And some of the more probing questions came when MSPs asked why the building had not been installed with fire suppression systems, or had its troublesome voids (which spread the 2014 fire vertically through the building) addressed, prior to the 2014 fire.

Gray was appointed in 2013, so it would seem obvious that the Committee should perhaps call her predecessor, Philip Rodney, and the director before Professor Tom Inns, Professor Seona Reid.