The coroner made derogatory remarks about my profession and, by implication, about me. He came close to suggesting I’d failed in my duty of care. Rockwell gave a detailed account of his investigation at that point but ended by admitting that he had no promising leads to follow. The finding was inevitable: Robert Raymond Forrest was killed by a person or persons unknown. Rockwell approached me after the hearing. ‘Still sniffing around, Hardy?’ ‘Sort of.’ ‘Still bankrolled by Ray Frost?’ ‘I wouldn’t call it bankrolled, but he’s still keen to find out what happened and you blokes obviously haven’t got very far.’ ‘Have you heard the latest theory?’ ‘What d’you mean?’ ‘Don’t you read the tweets and blogs, keep up with Facebook?’ ‘No.’ ‘Better catch up if you want to stay in your game.’ We were walking down Parramatta Road away from the Glebe coronial court. The morgue was in the same building and it was a precinct I’d spent a bit of time in over the years. ‘What’s the theory?’ Rockwell laughed.
