The Shining Girls

Harper ^{10 APRIL 1932}

For the first time he is almost reluctant to go and make a kill. It was the way the showgirl kissed him. Full of love and hope and desire. Is it so bad to want that? He knows he is putting it off, delaying the inevitable. He should be hunting for the future version of her, instead of strolling down State Street like he doesn’t have a care.

When who should he see but his little piggy nurse, window-shopping and all tucked up nice and tight under another man’s arm. She is plumper, in a better coat. The padding suits her, he thinks, and recognizes the thought as covetous. Her gentleman friend is the doctor from the hospital, with his mane of hair and a fine cashmere scarf. He last saw him, Harper recalls, staring up sightlessly from a dumpster in 1993.

‘Hello, Etta,’ Harper says, moving in too close, almost stepping on their toes. He can smell her perfume. Too-sweet citrus. It smells whoreish. It suits her.

‘Oh,’ Etta says, her expression racing through seasons: recognition, dismay, a sharp glee.

‘Is this someone you know?’ The doctor gives an uncertain half-smile.

‘You fixed my leg,’ Harper says. ‘I’m sorry you don’t remember me, Doc.’

‘Oh yes,’ he blusters, as if he knows exactly who Harper is. ‘And how is your leg, sport?’

‘Much better. I barely need the crutch. Although it still comes in useful sometimes.’

Etta snuggles in tighter to the doctor, clearly aiming to get under Harper’s skin. ‘We were just off to a show.’

‘You’ve got both your shoes today,’ Harper points out.

‘And I am going dancing in them,’ she sniffs.

‘Well, I don’t know if we’re going to manage that as well,’ the doctor says, thrown by the exchange. ‘But if you like. Hang it all, why not?’ He looks to Etta for his cue. Harper knows his kind exactly. Twisted round a woman’s fingers like a cat’s cradle. He thinks he’s in control, which lets him defer to her because he’s trying to impress. He thinks he’s safe in the world, but he doesn’t know its reaches.

‘Don’t let me interrupt you. Miss Etta. Doctor.’ Harper nods respectfully, and moves on before the man can recover himself enough to take offense.

‘It was very nice to see you, Mr Curtis,’ Etta calls over her shoulder. Hedging her bets. Or egging him on.

He follows the good doctor home from the hospital the next night, after his shift. Tells him that he wants to take him out for dinner to thank him for seeing him right. When the man politely tries to decline Harper’s invitation, he is forced to get out his knife, a new one, to convince him to come back with him to the House.

‘Just popping in and out,’ he says, pushing the man’s head down to duck under the planks barring the door, closing it behind them, and reopening it sixty years into the future, where the doctor’s fate is already awaiting him. He doesn’t even struggle. Not very much. Harper leads him to the dumpster and then strangles him with his own scarf. The hardest part is tipping him in after.

‘Don’t worry,’ he tells the puce-faced corpse, ‘you’ll have company soon.’