One last story

OX10 9PP. St Mary’s Church, Cholsey. Wallingford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom.

Alcalá de Henares (Madrid). February 23^rd, 2022.

 

Dear Agatha

Normally you tell me the stories, but today I would like to be the one to tell you one. Do not have high expectations, it is not at all similar to yours.

This story begins one day a few years ago, on February 13^th. I remember it because it was the day before Valentine’s Day and, at that time, my parents used to like making me and my brother participate in the moment of opening the gifts. I had already manifested clear traits of a mystery lover and my mother had the idea of trying to you. The books I had of yours on the shelf were The Murder  of Roger Ackroyd and Ten Little Niggers. This one was the first book I volunteered read on my sleeping hours, I remember that, furthermore, I devoured it on a trip to Córdoba and, while visiting the mosque, I dreamed that Emily Brent and Dr. Armstrong were actually in cahoots and, when the former died, it was because the doctor was not interested in her being alive. While visiting the Alcázar I was convinced that the doctor had gathered them all there and he was the murderer and that same night, when I arrived at the hotel and read his murder, it was the first time you left me speechless. And, in this way, the memory of my favourite novel remained linked to that beautiful city. It’s impossible for me to remember its streets without thinking of you and how you deceived me.

That’s why whenever I travelled, I could not miss one of your novels under my arm. By doing so, your essence would spread to every place I visited and it would always have its head busy trying to unmask the murderer before you did. In this way, you slipped into my day to day. Reading A Tragedy Christmas on the last day of the year, death in the clouds on the plane back from Prague… If I’m honest, when I read one of your novels away from home, I feel more yours, because I know that what drive you to create was not in Torquay. In fact, now, when I think about it, home never brought you good things. Tell that asshole Archie and Nancy. Isn’t it? Your place has always been on the remote islands awaiting justice, on Nile cruises filled with rancour, on trains departing from Istanbul loaded with revenge…

I know that it is impossible for you to read this letter, but a part of me, the dreamiest and the one who likes to smile the most, knows that you will manage to do it. That’s why the child that I still have inside me has thought of making two copies of this letter: one to send it as close as possible to what is left of you and, the other one, burnt it to free the words from the paper and let them fly free; so you can hunt them from wherever you are.

By the way, say hello to Vera from me, until now she has been your victim who has touched my heart the most, although I don’t recommend that you hang out with her a lot. Better with Poirot, perhaps now is your chance to discuss all your cases together. Many criticized you for taking it with you when you left; however, I understood you. You needed someone up there who knew how to understand you to continue talking about all those mysteries in which you lived and, if you allow me to comment, I will tell you that you made the best possible choice.

And we come to the end of the story. The story of someone who lives more in your mysteries than in the life from which you gave us the option to escape.

Sincerely yours.

David Castellanos Martínez