Over the next four weeks, The Weekend Sun follows the story of Brian Lissette's most rewarding investigative work, a personal cold case stretching back more than 70 years.

Brian Lissette is an inscrutable old ex-cop. And he'd probably tell you he saved his best investigative work until after he turned in his handcuffs.

'I am bloody proud of what I have achieved,” he says in a matter-of-fact cop kind of way.

This is the man who chased legendary crim come folk legend George Wilder around the central North Island, and was stationed in Ranfurly, Central Otago, around the time Constable Peter Umbers was bashed to death with his own truncheon.

'I've seen it all. Seen too much really,” he says suggestively. Most satisfying moment in uniform? 'Helping a little old lady who was locked out of her car.” He's subtlety telling me the casebook is closed, and he doesn't want to talk about it.

Brian Lissette only wants to talk about the nice stuff, like this cold case of sorts, a very personal cold case.

'When Jean and I got married everything was beautiful. And this was right up there with it.”

It's a cold case laced with intrigue, romance, and heroism, but tinged with tragedy and the enduring respect and gratitude of two peoples.

'Right from when we were children we were told our uncle, Leslie Harry Lissette, was a hero. He was a pilot with Bomber Command and he died in France.” But that's all they knew of the man in the photo, wearing an RAF uniform, and holding a baby Brian.

Nearly fifty years later, in 1991, Brian began to unravel the cold case. When the file of Warrant Officer Leslie Harry Lissette 391011 arrived from Military Archives, Brian got excited. 'On the front page of the very first document is my uncle's handwriting, his application for enlistment with the RNZAF.”

It tells us Lissette was a Hawke's Bay labourer, farmhand, and orchardist who stood 5-foot 9-inches (179 centimetres) in his socks and didn't have any criminal convictions. The application brought the story to life for the ex-policeman. 'The hand that scrawled those lines was my own flesh and blood.”

And Brian's own flesh and blood was a character who liked a beer. 'When they weren't on ops they'd send out scouts on bicycles to find a pub with beer. When they found one they'd fire a flare. Then everyone would climb on their pushbikes and go drink the pub dry.”

And when Curly Emeny joined the air crew, Warrant Officer Leslie Harry Lissett ordered him to withdraw all his savings except for a few shillings and pence. 'Then everyone got absolutely pissed on Curly.”

So the devilish Lissette liked a drink. 'Oh yeah!! No wowsers here. He lived hard and played hard.”

And he was a down to earth, honest kiwi from a town with a general store, a hall and a school.

Curley Emeny later wrote of his skipper, ‘he was a tough powerfully built man, a four horse teamster who hauled logs out of the mountains'.

As a show of that strength, the mid upper gunner recalled Lissette picking up the gunner's three kitbags and suitcase and carrying them to his billet as if they were loaves of bread.

But the good times were to take a dark turn, on the night of May 3, 1944.

Next week: Brian learns of the part his Uncle played in a raid on the German Wehrmacht training centre close to the village of Mailly-le-Camp, France.