Free Of Cops & Robbers by Mike Nicol Page A

blood, boykie. You’re not cut. No open wounds.’
    Blondie sees the three prisoners on the ground, Rictus and the Fisherman standing over them, guns in their hands. One of the men not moving, three of them bleeding rivers.
    ‘Still alive,’ says Rictus. ‘You want us to finish it?’
    ‘Wait,’ says the Commander. ‘Let him straighten up. His pleasure, don’t you think?’ – pointing at Blondie.
    Fifteen minutes it takes Blondie to stand, leaning on the Commander.
    ‘Take it easy, okay. Go slow.’
    One of the prisoners is sitting up, wild-eyed. The other two lie groaning.
    Blondie walks towards them, takes the 9-mil Rictus gives him.
    He shoots the two groaners first, head shots. Shifts the gun to the one sitting, the one watching him, the one who called him mlungu. Slots him in the face.

16
    Fish follows Colins up the path on the lower slopes of the mountain to the old fort, branches whipping in his face. It’s a short climb to low stone walls overlooking the bay.
    ‘I’ve never been up here,’ says Fish. ‘Not much of a fort.’
    ‘It’s from the Muizenberg battle.’ Colins crouched, shifting rocks aside.
    ‘I read the info board too,’ says Fish, watching the bergie haul out a plastic bag. Colins opens it, holds the bag for Fish to peer in. ‘So you weren’t lying.’
    ‘Why was I supposed to lie to you, gentleman?’ says Colins.
    Fish takes out the bigger horn, runs his hand over the end that should be meaty. No flesh, no blood.
    ‘Weird,’ he says.
    Colins steps away. ‘You mustn’t touch it because of the poison.’
    ‘Huh?’ says Fish, puts the horn down on the wall. ‘What’re you talking about? What’s this poison?’
    ‘Says so in the newspaper, gentleman.’ Colins pulls a quartered page of newsprint from his jacket pocket. ‘I read it this morning. Strues.’
    Fish takes the page, flicks it open, reads the headline: ‘Poison rhino horns poached’. Beneath that the story:
    A security guard was killed last night when thieves broke into the Iziko South African Museum in Cape Town and made off with ‘priceless’ white rhinoceros horns.
    The security guard, a foreign national, was fatally stabbed.
    The thieves are risking more than arrest and prosecution : the horns are soaked in deadly arsenic anddichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT).
    ‘Why didn’t you warn me?’
    ‘I did.’
    ‘When it was too late. Shot, bru.’ Fish puts down the clipping, scrapes his hands over the stones, wipes them on his jeans. ‘This’s DDT we’re talking about. Sort of stuff kills everything.’
    ‘Unforeseen consequences.’ Colins saying it straight-faced.
    ‘Unforeseen consequences.’ Fish checks him out. ‘You’re fulla crap.’ He squints down at the newspaper, reading:
    Museum officials have warned that there could be ‘ unforeseen consequences’ if the stolen horns are ground into powder and marketed as an aphrodisiac or cure for fever.
    Fish saying it again: ‘Unforeseen consequences!’ Reads:
    Iziko’s director says museums and other heritage institutions all over the world have been targeted by criminals who supply ‘lucrative markets with artefacts for various uses’.
    While the exact circumstances of the theft were still under police investigation, the director said evidence at the crime scene suggested that the theft had been ‘carefully planned and … the exhibit was deliberately targeted’. Nothing else was missing. The priceless horns were displayed without incident for more than one hundred years.
    Fish uses the plastic bag as a glove to pick up the horn, drop it back in with its shorter twin. He hands the bag to Colins. Points at the hole in the wall.
    ‘You want me to put it back?’
    ‘I reckon, my friend, what d’you think?’
    Colins not saying anything.
    ‘You think I should take it to the cops?’
    ‘You’s a private investigator. Probably there’s a reward.’
    ‘Probably,’ says Fish.
    The two men facing the sea, staring where once British