Markina

Markina is a judge whose work brings him into close contact with Amaia Salazar’s investigation, but whose authority has limits when the case reaches powerful institutions. He listens as Amaia assembles a troubling chain of connections, then admits he cannot act as she wants; at the novel’s end, he makes a different consequential decision, canceling the search for Rosario after her battered coat is recovered downstream.

Identity and Judicial Role

Markina is addressed as a judge and serves as a judicial interlocutor for Amaia. Their working relationship is marked by her willingness to bring him developing leads and doubts, and by his careful attention to her account. He is not simply a conduit for her conclusions: the investigation confronts him with the legal and institutional implications of pursuing a suspect whose standing makes arrest especially fraught.

The pressures surrounding their work are visible before one of their meetings. Inma Herranz, the judge’s secretary, has apparently stayed late or extended her working day; Amaia notices that she has not turned a page in the same file for ten minutes. Markina arrives in a hurry wearing a long wool coat beaded with rain. The details establish a strained, prolonged working environment before the two investigators discuss the case.

Hearing Amaia’s Case

Amaia arrives after the arrest of a suspect, which she had already reported to Markina the previous night, but makes clear that the arrest is not what she has come to discuss. Over the next half hour she brings him up to date on the latest developments and lays out the doubts and suspicions they have raised. Markina listens attentively and takes notes before the conversation falls into a brief silence.

The case she presents reaches beyond an isolated desecration. Amaia tells him that the person responsible for the church desecrations and an attempt to kill a woman called the psychiatric department at the University Clinic of Navarra that morning. The killers she has investigated received therapy, and at least two were treated at that clinic. She has established connections to three of the killers and believes she can demonstrate links to the others. She also argues that Doctor Sarasola’s involvement is unlikely to be accidental: he had asked for her to lead the investigation into the desecrations and had appeared when Rosario needed to be transferred. Markina’s attentive listening gives her room to lay out the pattern, but does not guarantee that he can authorize the action she seeks.

Institutional Constraint

Amaia’s suspicions imply an extraordinary target: a Vatican priest responsible for defending the faith, holding a senior position in the Curia, whom she suspects of serial murder, cannibalism, and inducing others to commit crimes. Markina responds to the scale and consequences of that accusation with evident hesitation. When Amaia insists that Sarasola’s connections are reasoned and supported, Markina shakes his head and says that his hands are tied. Her answer—that this would require considerable courage—makes their disagreement less a dispute over whether the evidence matters than a confrontation with the limits on acting upon it.

The exchange sharpens the contrast between Amaia’s investigative conviction and Markina’s constrained judicial position. He does not dismiss the connections she sets out, but neither does he give her the decisive authorization she appears to need. His restraint leaves the suspected network unresolved at that moment and underscores the institutional weight behind the investigation’s next steps.

The Search for Rosario

Markina later takes part in the response to Rosario’s disappearance. The search operation brings together the Policía Foral de Navarra and the Guardia Civil, and even a dog unit is brought from Zaragoza. After twenty-four hours, volunteers find Rosario’s distinctive parka—with its Eskimo-style hood—caught on branches nearly two kilometres downstream. Markina examines the garment for several seconds. Its many knocks and scratches indicate the violence it has undergone, and he then tells the commanders to cancel the operation.

The cancellation is a practical decision made in the face of grim evidence rather than a recovered body. A Civil Protection volunteer points to the force of the water and the possibility that Rosario has already been carried toward the Cantabrian Sea, noting that the river had borne down trunks thicker than a human body as if they were sticks. Markina’s decision closes the organized search on that evidence, leaving Rosario’s fate unconfirmed. In this final appearance, his judicial authority takes the form of ending an operation when the river and the damaged clothing have made its continuation seem futile.