Amaia Salazar—Javier Markina

Amaia Salazar and Javier Markina are linked by an investigative collaboration that becomes complicated when Markina’s professional authority and personal interest meet. He can authorize Amaia’s work and offer her resources, but his advances lead her to define their relationship in explicitly professional terms. The encounter makes clear that, for Amaia, the distinction is not merely a matter of etiquette: a judge’s reaction could affect the work she is trying to pursue.

Judicial Cooperation

Their meeting takes place at a restaurant, where a waitress guides Amaia past a small sitting room to one of the better tables beside the chef’s bookcase. The table is arranged for two, with five chairs around it. Markina stands to greet Amaia and offers his hand. The setting gives their conversation a personal cast, but its immediate substance is official: Amaia seeks his support for an investigation involving cases that have been closed.

Markina says that he thinks there may be something to pursue and agrees to authorize her. He asks her to proceed cautiously and avoid drawing press attention to the matter, because reopening closed cases could cause unnecessary suffering to victims’ families. He also asks her to keep him informed and tells her to request whatever she needs. His response makes him a potential institutional ally: he grants permission, identifies a condition around publicity, and offers practical support.

Amaia does not let the authorization turn into an open-ended promise of quick results. She tells him that she will proceed slowly and that she is already working with her team on another investigation, so she does not expect to have an update for him within days. The exchange establishes a working arrangement with limits on both sides: Markina expects discretion and information, while Amaia sets realistic expectations about her time and the pace of the inquiry.

A Meeting with a Personal Undercurrent

The restaurant encounter is framed by details that make Markina’s attention to Amaia difficult to read as purely procedural. The table is set for two, and he has made efforts to bring about their meeting. The waitress’s appreciative look at him registers his good looks, a detail that also informs Amaia’s later assessment of how accustomed he may be to receiving women’s attention. These circumstances suggest personal interest without displacing the fact that their meeting also concerns official business.

When Amaia leaves, she acts quickly: she throws her coat into the vehicle, gets in, and starts the engine. She has spent hours anticipating Markina’s approach and is determined to intercept his advances. As she is closing the door, he says her name, moving from the formal surname he has used at their meeting to her first name. He reaches toward her and brushes the lock of hair falling over her shoulder with the back of his hand. Amaia stiffens; Markina withdraws his hand, embarrassed.

The gesture is brief, but it changes the terms of the encounter. Markina’s move toward physical familiarity meets an immediate, visible refusal. Amaia responds by telling him, in effect, how he is to address her: as Inspector Salazar, Chief Salazar, or simply Salazar. She does not accept the intimacy implied by his use of her first name, and the formal titles restore the professional distance he has crossed. Markina nods, and Amaia thinks she can make out that he is blushing, though the light is poor.

Professional Boundaries and Unequal Stakes

Amaia ends the exchange by addressing him as Judge Markina, then backs the vehicle onto the road. Her insistence on titles works in both directions: she rejects being addressed familiarly while continuing to recognize his office. That distinction matters because their connection is not between equals in every practical respect. He is the judge whose authorization she needs, and his approval could help her investigation; the personal boundary therefore has to be set without pretending that the official relationship carries no stakes.

After leaving, Amaia weighs those stakes directly. She does not want to make an enemy of a judge, and hopes her warning has established the limits of their relationship without wounding his pride. She reads his look as a mixture of pleading and desire, something she has seen in other men and associates with future trouble. She also recognizes that a difficult personal reaction from him could make the investigation harder. Her caution is not presented as certainty about what Markina will do: she hopes he will not take offense, while acknowledging the possibility that he might.

Amaia also considers the effort Markina has made to arrange the meeting and assumes that a man as handsome as he is may not be used to rejection. Her spoken conclusion that there is always a first time closes the scene with dry resolve rather than uncertainty about her own boundary. She expects the court employees led by Inmaculada Herranz to direct his attention toward another woman soon. That expectation does not erase her concern about professional repercussions; it shows her trying to contain the situation while anticipating that his interest may move elsewhere.

The Relationship’s Initial Shape

At this stage, the relationship is defined by two simultaneous facts: Markina has granted Amaia meaningful investigative support, and he has shown personal interest that she does not welcome. Amaia does not treat the authorization as proof of intimacy, nor does she allow his judicial position to make the unwanted touch acceptable. Instead, she separates the cooperation she needs from the familiarity he attempts to establish.

The scene leaves the practical consequences unresolved. Markina has agreed to authorize the inquiry and remain informed, while Amaia has made clear how she expects him to address her and has warned against crossing into personal territory. Her concern that he might feel offended keeps the imbalance in view: the boundary is firmly expressed, but she must still work with a judge whose cooperation matters. Their early connection is therefore neither simply a professional alliance nor an established romance. It is a working relationship under pressure from Markina’s apparent pursuit and Amaia’s effort to keep the investigation, and the terms on which they deal with one another, under control.