Free Death Trap by Dreda Say Mitchell

Ophelia said to Rio. Then she drew the half-gone ciggie between her thin fingers to her cherry painted lips. Her cool grey eyes were hidden behind Ray-Ban midnight green, tinted shades.
    They stood around the back of the hospital, near the bins, in an unofficial smoking zone. A man and woman stood not far away, heads together as they puffed on a fresh batch of nicotine. After Nikki’s recollections about the gunmen her mother came over all protective lioness again and blocked any further questioning. Rio had invited the actress to join her in the canteen to find out more about her parents but Ophelia had shaken her red head saying she wasn’t in the mood to be recognised, or as she put it, ‘be part of a finger-pointing sightseeing tour for the public.’ Rio got the impression that she usually loved the whole fame game, but not today. Not the day she’d found out her parents had been brutally butchered. But she’d consented to have a smoke and talk in a place where she was anonymous.
    ‘Just a brother,’ Rio answered the other woman’s question. ‘My parents are both gone. My dad cut out on us when I was five and my mum passed away three months ago.’
    Ophelia took a few more lazy puffs and, with smoke drifting with her words, said, ‘How did you deal with it?’ She didn’t need to tell Rio what ‘it’ was. Death.
    Rio’s eyebrows shuffled together. ‘I was lucky enough to know both my grandparents. My dad was from Trinidad but my mum came from the neighbouring island of Grenada. When my grandmother in Trinidad died we all went down for her funeral. My grandmother’s mother was from the Punjab and I think my gran still held on to some of her Hindu beliefs.’ A tiny smile creased Rio’s lips. ‘There was a bit of a tussle between her African blood and her Hindu relatives about what her send-off should be. But in the end they all agreed that whatever it was, whatever it looked like, it had to be a journey of peace. I never forgot that word when my dad died. My mum died. Peace. Peace.’
    Ophelia pushed the ciggie to her lips and sucked hard. She shifted her gaze and head away from Rio. Smoke clouded around her face, leaving a hazy mask that dulled the glossy red of her hair. Rio had an impulse to wave the smoke away; this woman had had too much dirt thrown at her recently.
    Ophelia turned back to her. ‘Why did you become a cop?’
    ‘Why did you become an actress?’ Getting people to talk was one of Rio’s specialities. Over the years she learned that sometimes the best way of doing that was by going an indirect route.
    The other woman flicked the butt on to the ground, then folded her arms reminding Rio how skinny she was.
    ‘Don’t get me wrong. I had one of those blissful childhoods – attentive parents, top of the range schools, lived in a neighbourhood that had style mags gagging. But I always found myself wanting something else. Someone else’s life I suppose. At uni I got involved in the drama society and it just seemed that the natural progression would be to attend drama school.’ Her cherry lips twisted.
    ‘Your parents didn’t approve?’ Rio pulled out an energy-protein bar from her jacket. She offered it to Ophelia, but the other woman wrinkled her nose as if she was being offered poison.
    Rio ripped the wrapper as Ophelia started talking again. ‘It was Dad really. He wanted me to become part of the business—’
    ‘And what business was that?’
    ‘Aren’t you Ophelia Bell?’ a voice interrupted.
    Both Rio and the actress turned to find the couple who’d been smoking nearby, less than a metre from them. It was the man who spoke, his cheeks high-red with excitement.
    ‘No. Now push off.’ Ophelia’s cherry lips snarled fiery peppers style.
    ‘But that’s you up there isn’t it?’ the man persisted, pointing.
    Both Rio and Ophelia looked at what he pointed at; a poster on the wall advocating the work of a charity called, ‘Love Yourself’ which was having a week’s