Judge Markina

Judge Markina’s importance to the investigation lies in a consequential act of judicial support: he opens the Tarttalo case after Amaia Salazar presses for it, and says he trusted her before the evidence confirmed her concerns. Their exchange at a formal dinner shows a professional alliance built on both confidence and friction: Amaia acknowledges his support, but reminds him that she helped leave him little choice.

Judicial Support for the Investigation

Judge Markina agrees to open the Tarttalo case at Amaia’s request. She thanks him for that support, and he replies that evidence mattered, but that his confidence in her came first. The distinction establishes the basis of their collaboration: he is not merely processing a case already settled by proof, but exercising judgment while the investigation is still developing.

That support matters because the emerging pattern is difficult to explain as imitation or as the ordinary violence of abusive partners. The known offenders share features such as a close relationship to the victim, prolonged abuse, and often alcohol or drug use; what does not fit is the postmortem removal of the same arm and the disappearance of the limb. Amaia argues that the repeated method and the unusual inscription point toward a single inducer behind otherwise distinct crimes. Markina’s decision gives that wider possibility a formal investigative frame.

The Case Briefed at Dinner

Their discussion takes place at the Hotel Europa, one of Pamplona’s leading restaurants, chosen by Markina in keeping with his preference for traditional cooking presented in a modern style. Amaia arrives in her red police uniform, visibly out of place among the restaurant’s elegant diners. Markina stands to greet her, and she offers her gloved hand before he can respond to her striking entrance.

The meeting is not only social courtesy. When Markina asks whether the inquiry has advanced, Amaia tells him that investigators have found another case that appears to fit the victim profile and identified a suspected collaborator. The man, she explains, had tortured his wife for two years; after leaving prison, he had returned to pursue her. An arrest warrant has been issued. She describes the suspected inducer’s method as a gradual process: selecting people whose lives and violent tendencies are already nearing a breaking point, cultivating a relationship with them over time, and eventually giving a signal they obey.

Trust, Evidence, and Uncertainty

Amaia’s account makes clear that the investigation has moved beyond matching isolated crimes, but has not yet established every link. The team believes the suspect is a collaborator, while the identity and means of the person directing such collaborators remain unresolved. Markina’s question gives Amaia space to state both what investigators believe and what they do not yet know.

The wider inquiry depends on separating resemblance from proof. In related cases, similar postmortem cuts raise the possibility of a common operator, but photographs alone cannot establish that the same tool was used; a comparison would require the physical evidence. Likewise, the distinctive wall inscription and repeated removal of an arm strengthen the pattern without, by themselves, explaining how the suspected inducer selects or controls offenders. Markina’s initial confidence in Amaia therefore supports an investigation whose central claims are still being tested, rather than replacing that testing.

Character and Narrative Role

Markina is presented here chiefly through his judicial decisions and his exchanges with Amaia. He combines institutional authority with personal trust in her judgment, but the relationship is not frictionless: she reminds him that she had asked him to act, and that the evidence gave him grounds to do so. His support is thus neither blind endorsement nor a substitute for evidence; it helps Amaia pursue a pattern that crosses cases and jurisdictions while its mechanism remains uncertain.

The dinner also places their collaboration in a setting where formal roles and personal impressions briefly meet. Markina chooses the restaurant and is surprised by Amaia’s uniform, but the conversation quickly returns to the case. His narrative function is to turn her developing theory into an inquiry with judicial backing, while the exchange preserves the tension between what the investigators suspect and what they can yet demonstrate.