Death Comes as a Shadow

Book 0: William Garrett Novels

by Natalie Marlow

Genres: Hard-Boiled

Synopsis

It's May 1935, and while the rest of Birmingham is decked in red, white and blue for the silver jubilee, the detective agency in Needless Alley remains unpatriotically down-at-heel.

Into the office walks respectable spinster, Myfanwy Davies. She is dying, has cash to spare, and her last wish is to be reconciled with her estranged little sister. Miss Davies believes detectives William Garrett and Phyll Hall can help.

With the bailiffs at their door, William and Phyll are relieved to take on what appears to be a straightforward and lucrative case. However, their search for the missing woman leads to a complex web of murder and intrigue, as they journey through the glamorous world of Britain's burgeoning film industry, the sinisterly genteel headquarters of an apocalyptic cult, and the murder of the heir to England's most revered acting dynasty. Who is Myfanwy Davies? Where is her little sister? And why has death cast its long shadow over their investigations?

PRAISE FOR NATALIE MARLOW:

'Creates an atmosphere of mounting menace' The Times

'Superbly researched, spine-tingling, magnificently atmospheric' Abir Mukherjee, author of The Shadows of Men

'A truly splendid, wicked gem of a book. I loved it' Tom Mead, author of Death and the Conjuror

Release date: November 5, 2026

Publisher: John Murray Press

Print pages: 352

Sample

Acknowledgements

 

I first encountered the central idea for Death Comes as a Shadow in late 2024 when reading Dr Matthew Sweet’s scholarly (and fabulously catty) history of the early British film industry, Shepperton Babylon. A dream read for any film fan, it contained a brief but shocking account of the rape of a young actor named Molly Wright.

In the late 1920s, Sydney Chaplin, half-brother to Charlie, left the UK and his film career under a cloud. He had raped Molly and bitten off her nipple. Molly later sued the film company employing Chaplin at the time for ‘assault, libel and slander’, though the case was settled out of court. This is all I know of the incident. Chaplin would later go on to become his brother’s business manager, and Charlie even named his son after him. In those few sentences lay the kernel of a crime novel, and for that I thank Dr Sweet.

Around the same time, I was contacted by genealogist Cathy Clapinson. After reading my first novel, Needless Alley, Cathy had explored my family tree and uncovered a fascinating scandal. I had always known that my maternal great-grandmother (my grandfather’s mother, Emily Sophia) had spent time in prison, and I based my character Queenie on her. However, Cathy revealed that my other maternal great-grandmother (my grandmother’s mother, known in our family as Phyllis) had also been a career criminal.

Phyllis had committed numerous cases of larceny across Cheshire and Liverpool while still in her teens and early twenties. Posing variously as an heiress from North Virginia, a teacher from the Manchester School for Girls, or a secretary of a cotton merchant, she would charm her way into boarding houses and hotels, steal from fellow residents, neglect to pay her bill, and depart in a ‘moonlit flit’. Her real name was Bertha Oultram, although she also used aliases including Andrina de Rosnay, Emily Walker and Phyllis Hunt.

I am certain my grandmother had no knowledge of her mother’s criminal past. She believed her mother had been a nurse during the Great War, caring for a handsome soldier named Thomas Quinney, whom she later married. In truth, Bertha was serving time in Liverpool prison for much of the First World War. She was much loved, and many women in our family have Phyllis as a middle name, never knowing the original Phyllis was really a Bertha – and a con woman.

I had named my character Phyll after her, before I knew the real woman was as much a fabrication as any character I had invented. So my thanks go to Cathy for uncovering Phyllis’s remarkable story which, in turn, acted as a catalyst for the plot of this novel.

Next, I would like to thank my daughters for their patience and support in the face of my writing obsession. One day, we’ll take that long-promised cruise around the fjords – and I’ll even leave my laptop at home. As always, my love and thanks also go to my husband, Andrew: my trusted reader and biggest cheerleader.

I am deeply grateful to Helen, Sim and Molly for their constant friendship and encouragement in the workplace.

Finally, my heartfelt thanks to editor extraordinaire Jade Chandler for her insight, expertise and perseverance, and to my wonderful agent Abi Fellows for her professionalism and good humour.

Chapter 1

Wednesday, 1 May 1935

 

Miss Myfanwy Davis had a wholesome, if Teutonic, beauty. She wore her dishwater-blonde hair in plaited coils about her head; her clear, pale skin, dusted with powder, showed faint lines of age around her brown eyes. Her athletic figure was encased in a plain navy suit – well cut and if not expensive then from the better class of department store. Miss Davis looked straight enough: the sort of woman who settled her accounts with efficiency.

She sat across the desk from Phyll, so that, as the spring sun shone in through the office window, she blinked and shaded her eyes with her hand. William moved to pull the blind down a fraction. Miss Davis nodded her thanks.

‘And when did you last see your sister?’ Phyll licked the tip of her pencil, poised to take shorthand notes, and smiled.

William wasn’t surprised by Phyll’s obvious attraction to their new client. Miss Davis looked as if she’d been born to wield a hockey stick on the drizzly playing fields of a better-class girls’ school – a square-jawed Valkyrie in a gym slip. She was Phyll’s type.

‘The first year of the war,’ said Miss Davis. She uncrossed her ankles and shifted her right leg over her left knee, adjusting the hem of her skirt. ‘No, on reflection, it was 1915. Dinah was born in 1900. She was just a child when she left home, and I haven’t seen her since. It’s been nearly twenty years.’

‘What were the circumstances of your rift?’ Phyll flashed Miss Davis another soft smile. ‘Please be candid. Giving us a complete account of events at this stage of the investigation saves Mr Garrett and me time – and therefore your expense.’

At the mention of his name, Miss Davis glanced briefly at William. The muscles in her tense jaw relaxed as she turned her gaze back to Phyll. It had been the right decision for Phyll to take the lead. She was a lady, of sorts, and spoke the vernacular of Miss Davis’s class. Moreover, her professionalism and good manners lent a certain polish to the seediness of the Needless Alley office.

William, six foot two and running to fat, his left cheek scarred by a booting from a petulant Mancunian thug, was no gentleman.

‘There wasn’t a rift. No argument, I mean,’ said Miss Davis. ‘But there was a selfishness on my part, which I deeply regret. Our mother died a terrible death. Afterwards, Dinah was a changed child. She was twelve when it happened. I was sixteen, and more able to cope. Father was a cold man – a Victorian patriarch of the old school. Some might say he was a sadist.’

‘How did your mother die?’ The weight of Miss Davis’s words made William believe that his question – heavy and intrusive, like his voice – was justified.

Miss Davis turned to him, wide-eyed. Her hand rose to her throat in a strange fluttering motion, and as she did so, her white gloves slipped from her lap onto the patch of sun-bleached linoleum at William’s feet. He bent to pick them up, as did Miss Davis, and their hands touched. She looked at him for a second longer than was necessary, then returned to her seat, placing the gloves carefully in her handbag. William took up his place by the filing cabinet.

Then Miss Davis fixed her gaze once more on Phyll and said, ‘My mother committed suicide, Mr Garrett.’

William winced. A brief pause settled over the room.

Phyll broke it. ‘And you believe your mother’s suicide affected your sister’s state of mind?’ she asked.

‘Oh, goodness me, yes.’ Miss Davis gave a small, ironic laugh. ‘This is rather difficult. It was in all the newspapers. We were in slate, you see. In a large way.’

‘Slate?’ Phyll frowned. ‘You mean it was your family business?’

‘Yes. A large slate concern near Penrhyn. Most of Victorian Birmingham is roofed in Welsh slate.’ She waved a hand towards the office window and the city beyond. ‘My father’s men used dynamite to quarry the hills. They’d blow up great portions of virgin hillside, then hand-hew the slate for tiles. The racket it made – that boom and clatter of my childhood – it made my father rich.’

Miss Davis smiled, then shuddered. ‘Until it all went silent in November 1912. The men went on strike, and Mother used the lull to steal dynamite from the works’ stores. She walked out after Christmas Day lunch, climbed one of the few unquarried hills nearby, and blew herself up. It was impossible to avoid the scar she left on the landscape. Dinah and I could see what was left of the hill from our bedroom windows. It was Father’s land. As soon as the men returned to work, he quarried it – and the hole Mother left only grew larger.’

Phyll expelled a soft hiss of air. Perhaps, William thought, in puzzlement, or in shock. But her reaction was understandable. Even William, with his own tragedies and secrets, found it difficult to fathom the depths of desperation needed to drive such an act.

‘Dinah was never strong,’ Miss Davis continued. ‘She was an earnest, emotional child who expected kindness and was simply bewildered when she didn’t get it. Mother always protected Dinah from Father’s excesses. After Mother died, she became hysterical. Father sent us back to school in January, but it didn’t help Dinah. Hers was a constant pouring of grief, you see, and it affected the other girls. Eventually, she was sent home. I remained behind.’

Miss Davis twitched a brief, weak smile. ‘That was a terrible mistake. Father persecuted poor Dinah. He was a tyrant to us both, but unspeakable to her. She grew up to be so like Mother, you see. Father both loved and hated her for it.’

Once more, Miss Davis adjusted the hem of her skirt. Then her hands leapt away from the suiting – as if she’d suddenly remembered some old lesson in deportment – and came to rest on the handbag in her lap. ‘School was a sanctuary to me even before Mother’s death. To put it bluntly, it was always a relief to get away from my family. Eventually, I went to teacher-training college, and I’ve remained cloistered in my profession for twenty years. My whole career – life – spent in the same Worcestershire school.’

She paused, then smiled a small, demure apology. William suddenly thought her speech rehearsed – her words too careful, too artificial. But affectation was nothing unusual among his clientele; it came from the urge to control a story steeped in shame or disgrace.

‘I was in my second year of training when I received a letter from Father saying Dinah had run away,’ Miss Davis continued. ‘She’d left a note, but I never saw it. Father claimed he burnt it to spare my feelings.’

‘Did the note say where she’d gone?’ asked Phyll.

‘There was no hint. And the police were of no help – mostly because Father didn’t want Dinah found.’ Miss Davis’s eyes burgeoned with tears, and her voice took on a distant, reflective tone, like a heroine in a play about to divulge a secret at the end of Act II.

Phyll pulled a handkerchief from her breast pocket and handed it to Miss Davis. The swiftness of the gesture displaced the lily-of-the-valley buttonhole from Phyll’s lapel, and for a moment the two women stared at the delicate white flowers – pale, nodding, bell-like – resting on a pad of curling, ink-spattered blotting paper. Then Phyll offered the posy to Miss Davis.

Miss Davis had told an age-old tale of a family tragedy making life unbearable for a sensitive adolescent child, and it mirrored William’s own. Dinah Davis, now thirty-five years old, had run away from home too. William had managed to forge a kind of life for himself since he chose to leave his parent’s dismal back-to-back, but had Dinah been so lucky? The world behaved differently towards girls.

William considered the postcard. A sepia photograph of a comedy troupe, it was the kind of thing sold, or perhaps even given away, in the foyer of a music hall to advertise an act. Three pretty girls peeped out of a large wicker basket – the kind used by commercial laundries. The girls smiled at the camera from beneath thick mops of tumbling dark curls. They had the plump, downy cheeks and rosebud lips so fashionable in the girls of his youth. Four men, incongruously dressed in stage Elizabethan garb, rested their elbows on the rim of the basket and leant into the girls, grinning. The tools of their trade – a banjo, a violin, a small drum – were artfully placed against the base of the basket. The picture was titled: Alfie March and his Musical Funniosities.

William flipped the card and read aloud: ‘Dear Fifi, I’m in Birmingham for a week. We’re playing the Gaiety. Do come and see me. Do come, please.’ The note was in a careful, girlish script, and properly spelt and punctuated. ‘Do come’ was underlined twice in pencil. The postcard was addressed to Miss M. Davis, Anstey College of Physical Training, Chester Road, Erdington, Birmingham; the stamp had been carefully removed, as if given to a child for their collection, and the remaining franking was blurred.

Miss Davis showed interest at his interest. Withdrawing that clear, deliberate gaze from the captivated Phyll, she now focused her attention on William. ‘Dinah always called me Fifi, Mr Garrett. When she was a small child, she couldn’t pronounce “Myfanwy”, you see. “Fifi” stuck, and I always thought it sweet,’ she said. ‘I did my teacher-training in Birmingham. She wrote because she wanted to see me. I was doing jury duty at the time. It was a terrible case, but I used it as an excuse not to contact her. I’m quite ashamed of myself.’

She lowered her eyes. ‘I’m afraid the Dinah I knew as a child will be very different to the grown woman she is today.’

‘Miss Davis, what’s changed? Why the remorse after such a long time?’ asked William. ‘Why do you want to find your sister now?’

Miss Davis looked up from her lap. Surveying at first Phyll, her gaze rested on William. She breathed in deeply, and on her exhale said, ‘Because I’m dying, Mr Garrett.’

William could not form a reply.

‘Oh, good God. I’m sorry,’ Phyll blurted. ‘Is there no hope?’ Her face flushed pink: she’d said too much, given herself away. ‘I’m so terribly sorry,’ she repeated.

‘A tumour, Miss Hall.’ Myfanwy Davis’s hand hovered above her left breast for a fraction of a second. ‘There’s nothing to be done. It’s a matter of weeks. I have three months at the most. I’m quite resigned to it all, now.’

‘And you want to say goodbye to your sister.’ The pink flush remained on Phyll’s cheeks. ‘It’s understandable. The bond between siblings is . . .’

Phyll’s voice trailed. Unable, William thought, to voice her sympathy without emphasising Miss Davis’s negligence towards her sister. And it was a negligence Phyll might not understand, as her love for Freddy – her brother – was absolute.

‘Of course I want to be reconciled with my sister,’ said Miss Davis. ‘However, I’m no fool. Dinah will be well within her rights to never want to see me again.’ She toyed with the hooded petals of the lily of the valley and smiled at Phyll. ‘When Father died, I was his sole legatee. It wasn’t the fortune he’d established in the early years, what with the depression and all, but it was a substantial sum. I sold the quarry and the house, of course. When I die, it will all go to Dinah. I hope she’s still alive, and that you can find her. Ideally, I want to make amends to her before I go. However, to have her address, to know that she is alive, will suffice. I don’t want her inheritance to be wasted on my solicitor trying to find her after my death. I’m attempting to do her a good turn, I suppose. I want nothing in return.’

‘You’ll want us to work as quickly as possible,’ said William.

Miss Davis laughed – involuntary, genuine – as if William was the class clown. ‘I admire your pragmatism, Mr Garrett,’ she said. ‘And it’s refreshing to be treated with such bluntness. Yes, I want you to prioritise my case. I will pay a retainer of thirty pounds.’ Once again, she opened her handbag, and, rustling the contents, then placed three ten-pound notes on the desk. ‘I will settle the remainder of my account once Dinah is found.’

The money was bank fresh. William didn’t lick his lips; that would’ve been crass, but he silently thanked God for Miss Davis and went to work.

‘Your sister was one of the girls on the postcard? A Funniosity?’

‘You’ve heard of them?’ Miss Davis’s smile was full of hope. ‘The girl in the basket, on the right-hand side, is Dinah. Is Mr March and his troupe famous?’

‘No.’ William glanced once more at the postcard. ‘But I’d bet a fiver the bloke in the funny hat is Little Dickie Bow.’

William handed the postcard to Phyll and pointed to a boy leaning into the basket of girls. The feather on his velvet cap tickled the cheek of a dark-haired young beauty – Dinah.

‘Who?’ asked Miss Davis.

‘Oh yes. You’re right.’ Phyll may have announced ‘a clue’, she was so thrilled by William’s observation. ‘Boyish, but that’s our Dickie alright,’ said Phyll. And, turning once more to Miss Davis, she asked, ‘You don’t know who Little Dickie is?’

‘He’s not mentioned on the postcard,’ said Miss Davis, shaking her head. ‘I rarely go to the music hall.’

‘Or the cinema?’ William failed to mask his shock. He couldn’t imagine a life without the pictures, and surely the whole of film-going Britain knew who Dickie Bow was. ‘He’s famous. Everyone loves Little Dickie. He sings, plays the banjolele and has a fine line in suggestive winks. He’s a favourite of the King, apparently.’

Miss Davis shook her head, nonplussed.

‘Dickie is engaged to Jeanette Maitland,’ continued William. ‘Surely you’ve heard of her? She’s only nineteen but said to be the next Madeleine Carroll. She’s his protégée. They’ve been seen canoodling at Ivor Novello’s Fifty-Fifty Club in Soho.’

‘Not everyone is as dedicated a reader of Picturegoer as you, Billy,’ said Phyll.

William raised his eyebrows at Phyll’s gall; she was the one who pored over the film magazines each week. He ploughed on. ‘The News of the World called Dickie Bow one of the film industry’s most eligible bachelors. He’ll be the star turn at the Royal Variety Performance in October.’

Miss Davis, once more, shook her head.

‘The whole show will be broadcast by the BBC. It’s a big thing for the Silver Jubilee year.’

Miss Davis sighed, baffled. Obviously, she didn’t go to the music hall or cinema; she didn’t read the tabloid newspapers; she didn’t listen to the wireless. ‘Is Mr Bow as unsophisticated as he sounds?’ she asked.

‘He’s a clever comedian, quick-witted with an audience, but he’s no Noël Coward,’ said William. ‘You wouldn’t find him sitting at the piano cooing witty ditties to Gertie Lawrence, and that’s for sure.’

‘But this is a starting point, yes? Mr Bow may remember Dinah.’ Miss Davis aimed a broad smile at William. ‘He may know where she is now, or at least what happened when she left Mr March’s troupe of . . .’ She paused, as if searching for the correct word. ‘Players.’

‘It’s a starting point.’ Phyll took the words from William’s mouth. Despite her digressions into posy-giving and languid looks, he knew it was still best she did most of the talking. She was the sensitive detective, after all. ‘But it might be difficult to speak to Dickie Bow. These film people are well protected from the public,’ she said. ‘Mr Garrett and I will try, but it may be politic to attempt other lines of enquiry. I have friends who run a club for women. Lots of actresses, dancers, are members, and they may know Dinah.’

Phyll’s instinct was correct. The Archway Club, with its clientele of old showgirls and even older tarts, was a hive of gossip. However, what Phyll didn’t know was that William was acquainted with the King’s favourite comic. Little Dickie Bow was a local lad. And, back in the day, the funny man had chummed about with a handsome young chorus boy going by the name of Ronnie Edgerton. Dickie Bow, to put it bluntly, had known – biblically – William’s childhood best friend. One telephone call to Queenie would elicit a reintroduction, as Ronnie’s little sister had the necessary clout. But was William desperate enough to call in favours from the mother of his child and Birmingham’s most adept villain? He winced. Of course he was. He’d pretty much do anything for thirty pounds in cash and a dying damsel in distress. This he knew for sure.

Chapter 10

William made inroads into a pot of coffee. Behind him, Rossetti slept stretched along the windowsill, hot with the sun, dreaming twitchy feline dreams. In front of him, and spread on his desk, lay the contents of Myfanwy Davis’s suitcase. He was reminded of a church jumble sale in the late afternoon – the poignant remnants of a life.

But what did he really know about Miss Davis? Not where she lived, or who her friends were, or even where exactly she worked. Myfanwy had inherited the family home and business in Penrhyn and had sold both for a decent amount of money; she was a schoolteacher in Worcestershire, the epitome of her kind; she was desperate to find her showgirl sister before she died. Here was the sum of William’s knowledge. And that he liked her, genuinely, and needed to find her, help her in any way he could.

William rose and searched his filing cabinet for the Worcestershire telephone directory and then spent the remainder of the morning telephoning girls’ schools in the county: St Celicia’s; Hambledon House; St Augusta’s; Hartshill – there were far more than he had ever imagined. The future, he had decided, was female. After the fifth call, William got lucky. He knew people had three basic reactions when being interviewed by a private enquiry agent: fear, outrage, and gossipy fascination. Fortunately for him, the secretary of the Malvern School for Girls was one of the latter. She answered his questions in detail and with a supressed glee. Yes, Miss Davis worked as an English mistress at the school. Yes, it was a Miss Myfanwy Davis. No, she never mentioned a sister. She rarely talked about her family other than the old gentleman in Penrhyn. I don’t believe she owned a property, no. She was a housemistress, you see. Lived in. She inherited the family home and business, but I’m sure she sold it. She was terribly dedicated to the girls.

‘Was?’ asked William, suddenly realising the secretary spoke in the past tense. ‘Has she left the school?’

‘Well, in a manner of speaking, yes,’ replied the secretary. There came a pause, a crackle down the line. ‘Miss Davis died five years ago, Mr Garrett. She had a tumour and left it too late. There was nothing the doctors could do. It was a terrible shame.’

William, dumbstruck and stupid, blushed at his own naivety. The woman – not Myfanwy – had conned him into finding Dickie Bow. He’d done his job, telling the imposter where Dickie lived, even though he suspected she had been following him on Sunday afternoon. Now Dickie Bow was dead, and the woman posing as Myfanwy Davis had run from her hotel bedroom.

‘Are you still there, Mr Garrett?’ The secretary’s voice brought him round like a slap.

‘What did she look like?’ he asked.

‘Look like?’ She had become suddenly suspicious.

‘Tall, short—’

‘I know what you mean,’ the secretary snapped. ‘Small, dark hair going grey. Would’ve been pretty once. Faded when I knew her, poor lady.’

William returned the telephone receiver back to its cradle and reached into his inside pocket for the picture postcard of Dinah with the young Dickie Bow. Was there anything more than a sisterly resemblance between this blousy Edwardian beauty and the respectable, middle-aged schoolteacher who called herself Myfanwy? Were they, in fact, the same person? Dinah was chubby with the puppy fat of youth, and a pale-skinned brunette. Whereas Myfanwy’s figure was athletic, and her hair was a dishwater blonde. But changes in weight, skin tone and hair colour were easily made. Women, even those not disguised as their dead sister, did it all the time. He threw the postcard on the desk and poured another cup of coffee.

It was almost impossible to tell; a waste of his time to speculate.

Suddenly, he heard the front door slam, and Phyll’s light tread on the staircase. William had expected Phyll to be all day on Marion Goodwood’s goose chase, but the cathedral clock had just struck one o’clock when she arrived in the office. Ruddy cheeked, and with some of the morning’s fatigue gone from her face, she sat on the corner of William’s desk, clutching a typewritten sheet of foolscap, excited.

William decided to let her talk; not dampen her enthusiasm with his bombshell.

‘You’re back early,’ he said. ‘Do you want a cup of coffee?’

‘Did you rescue the percolator from the boot of the car?’

William nodded. ‘There’s no more need to worry about the bailiffs.’

‘In that case, yes.’ Phyll peeked inside the sandwiches and wrinkled her nose at the filling. ‘Well, it turned out I didn’t have to buy a dress. The land agent’s secretary is a member of the Archway Club. She’s rather boring and hysterical, something of a bitch, in fact.’

God, William loved the Archway Club and all its drama. He resolved to ask Phyll for gossip about the hysterical secretary once the case was over.

‘So, I wouldn’t say we were friends, but nonetheless she’s a member. She handed the list over quite nicely.’

‘You lot are like the Masons.’ William reached for the sandwich Phyll rejected. ‘You need to have some sort of handshake.’

‘I’ll let Rita and Jonesy know.’ Phyll lit a cigarette and moved to the chair opposite William. ‘I’m keeping Mr Ascot’s tenner, though.’

‘Mr Goodwood,’ said William. ‘You have the wrong horse race. His name is Marion Goodwood.’

‘I could do with a bit of working capital.’ Phyll sipped her coffee, dragged on her cigarette with a carefree stylishness. ‘Although, I’m better off than you.’

‘You know?’ Shame fluttered about William’s chest like a trapped moth.

‘Some of it, I think. I do the books. I know you must’ve been keeping the business afloat with your savings. I know your savings have run out. I’m a detective, remember.’

‘I’m going to beg the landlord for a stay of execution. We’re cash rich, now.’ William shrugged, embarrassed. Nonetheless, he thanked heaven for small mercies and big Americans. ‘Have you noticed how many people have wanted to throw money at us in the last few days?’

‘Delightful, ain’t it?’ Phyll made to pour another coffee; frowned when she found the pot was empty. ‘If a tad suspicious.’

‘What did your girlfriend at the land ag. . .