Lau Haizeta is a farmhouse in Baztán that serves as a welcoming stop and a useful, though inconclusive, point in Amaia Salazar’s investigation of Argi Beltz. Set about a kilometre beyond the estate along the same road, it offers a striking contrast to Argi Beltz’s guarded entrance: its owner receives Amaia cordially, and its dogs draw her out of her frustration, but the visit yields no proof of the connection she is seeking.

Setting and approach

Amaia discovers Lau Haizeta while driving slowly along the road after finding Argi Beltz. A change in the ground and two neatly formed haystacks signal another farmhouse about a kilometre farther on. A wooden sign identifies the property as Lau Haizeta, a name rendered in the narrative as Four Winds. Amaia turns in and stops before a substantial stone cross that stands guard over the approach.

The cross belongs to a recognizable local landscape. In Baztán, protective crosses stand at the entrances to many houses and farmsteads; in Arizkun, Amaia has seen them by homes, barns and chicken coops, often beside the flower symbols that guard farmhouse entrances. Lau Haizeta makes this familiar custom unusually conspicuous: Amaia counts six crosses as she drives toward the main entrance. Their number makes protection a defining feature of the property before its people appear.

Four dogs trot alongside Amaia’s car without barking. The owner watches from a ground-floor doorway and waits until Amaia has got out before approaching. The scene introduces Lau Haizeta as both open and guarded: the dogs do not raise an alarm, but the owner observes the visitor before greeting her. When Amaia addresses her in Basque, the owner’s expression relaxes at once on recognizing her Baztán accent.

The owner and the farmhouse dogs

On a later visit, the owner receives Amaia with her customary cordiality. The season is still winter, though nearly spring, and the dogs’ coats have grown into long, tightly curled locks resembling the wool of the sheep they usually tend. The owner warns Amaia that once she starts petting them, they will not leave her alone. The dogs make good on the warning, jumping around her and competing for her attention.

Amaia lingers with them, smiling at their demands, while the owner indicates that the coffee is ready. Over coffee, the owner tells anecdotes about the dogs, how good they are and how well they look after the farmhouse. These details give the place a practical, lived-in character: its dogs are not merely a barrier at the entrance but working guardians who belong to the routines of the caserío. Their eager attention also has an immediate effect on Amaia, easing the ill humour and anger she has carried there.

A lead that stops short

The visit takes place against Amaia’s suspicion that information about the investigation has leaked. In her mind, Fina Hidalgo’s offer of walnuts, made while watching her knowingly, remains a private-looking declaration of guilt. Amaia understands the explanations offered by Iriarte, Jonan Etxaide and Fermín Montes, but believes the information could only have come from one place. She still has no proof connecting Zabalza to Fina, and doubts that resentment alone would make him endanger a case. Lau Haizeta becomes a pause in this impasse: its dogs relieve her tension, but they do not resolve the problem.

After more than an hour, conscious that she has run out of leads, Amaia shows the owner photographs of Fina and Fina’s car, taken outside Fina’s home the previous day. The owner recognizes her as the nurse, the doctor’s sister, and says she has known her for years. But when Amaia asks whether she has seen Fina go to the house nearby, the owner says she has not. Recognition establishes familiarity, not access; the answer supplies no evidence that Fina visited the neighboring property.

That distinction matters to Amaia. Even a statement confirming that the people under scrutiny visited the house would show only social or friendly contact unless she could establish another relationship between them. She leaves with a mixture of progress and disappointment: the owner can identify Fina, but cannot substantiate the link Amaia needs. Lau Haizeta’s usefulness as a witness’s home is therefore bounded by what its owner has actually seen.

Position in the investigation

After the conversation, Amaia drives to a rise from which much of Argi Beltz can be seen, then descends to the estate’s entrance and watches its disguised fence and garage access from inside her car. From that position she notices a woman who has climbed the slope opposite the house and is taking photographs with what appears, at a distance, to be a professional camera. Amaia gets out and climbs toward her over steep, slippery grass. The episode extends the investigation into the surrounding landscape: the road links Lau Haizeta and Argi Beltz, while the slopes and elevated viewpoints make observation possible on both sides of the estate’s boundary.

Lau Haizeta does not expose the secret Amaia is pursuing. Its role is more measured: it anchors the inquiry in the local customs and working life of Baztán, offers a brief domestic counterpoint to suspicion, and provides a witness whose knowledge proves narrower than Amaia needs. The six crosses, the watchful entrance and the dogs that turn a guarded arrival into an affectionate welcome all give the farmhouse a distinct character, while the unanswered question about Fina keeps the investigation in motion.