When Rex Hawkins retired as a detective in 1990, a troubling loose end stuck in his mind.
An innocent family man had been shot in cold blood outside a service-station, and no one had been brought to justice.
It had fallen upon Mr Hawkins to act as the Taupo police's support person to the grieving whanau of victim Rodney Tahu, a loving father and Saturday morning rugby referee.
But what burned inside Mr Hawkins then and ever since was that he had always known the identity of the man who pulled the trigger.
He had even arrested Menzies Reginald John Hallett just over 24 hours after the 1979…