Lejarreta y Andía

Lejarreta y Andía is a commercial law firm whose name becomes a crucial link in Amaia Salazar’s investigation into suspicious infant deaths. It first appears as the legal shield invoked by people questioned about their relationship with the deceased Doctor Berasategui; later, commercial-registry records establish that the firm represented companies belonging to Marcel Tremond. Those connections place the firm near people and families relevant to the case, but the evidence identifies a professional relationship, not the firm’s participation in criminal activity.

Legal Identity and First Appearance

When Amaia approaches a couple after Berasategui’s death, the man says that their relationship with the doctor is protected by professional secrecy and directs further questions to their lawyer. He hands her a business card bearing the firm’s name. The card does not answer Amaia’s question about what connected the couple to Berasategui; instead, it turns the encounter toward a legal intermediary and a possible paper trail.

At first, the firm’s name means little to Inspector Iriarte. Amaia recognizes it because the same card had been given to her by the Martínez Bayón family. Its appearance in two encounters gives her a reason to compare the relationships, though a shared law firm alone cannot establish that either client was involved in wrongdoing. She presents the card to her colleagues as a lead to be tested against the other facts, not as proof in itself.

Commercial Representation and the Tremond Connection

Amaia explains that Lejarreta y Andía is not a criminal-law practice: its work includes commercial matters and imports and exports. That specialization initially makes the card seem less directly relevant to a homicide inquiry. The significance changes when Inspector Montes checks the commercial register. Several companies are listed under Marcel Tremond’s name, most connected with wind technology and windmill motors, with a substantial presence in Navarra, Aragón, and La Rioja. Across the registry entries, Lejarreta y Andía appears as the companies’ representative. Montes describes the business connection as established beyond doubt.

This record gives the investigation a concrete link between the firm and Tremond, rather than relying only on the card passed across a doorstep. It also clarifies the kind of link: the records place the firm in a recurring representative role for Tremond’s commercial interests. They do not, by themselves, disclose what the lawyers knew about his private associations, explain the nature of his relationship with Berasategui, or show that the firm’s business services had any connection to the deaths under investigation.

The Wider Network Under Investigation

The firm becomes important because Tremond and his wife are connected to an older group that Amaia is investigating. Elena Ochoa had told Amaia that a sect-like community established itself at a farmhouse in Orabidea in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Its activities had moved from cultural and spiritual meetings toward occultism, animal sacrifice, and the suggestion of human sacrifice; Ochoa left when the practices became intolerable. The couple now living at the renovated property had belonged to the original group, and a neighbor identified Berasategui’s car there. They acknowledged knowing him but did not explain their relationship.

The couple also had a daughter who, according to their account, died as an infant during a trip to the United Kingdom. Amaia’s checks found no death certificate, hospital record, or record of the journey. The absence of documentation raises questions about their account, but does not establish what happened to the child. The couple’s legal representation by Lejarreta y Andía therefore places the firm beside one of the investigation’s central families and its unanswered history, without resolving that history.

Amaia sets this connection alongside other infant deaths initially classified as sudden infant death. In her briefing, she describes a group of cases involving girls, including her own sister and three other children, whose parents’ behavior had also attracted suspicion; social services had recommended follow-up in some families. She identifies the old group, the farmhouse, and a wealthy couple of lawyers as a common connection among the families she is examining. That statement makes the lawyers’ professional world part of the investigative pattern, but the evidence distinguishes the couple from their law firm: it does not say that Lejarreta y Andía arranged, concealed, or enabled the deaths.

Evidentiary Role and Limits

The firm’s significance lies in the way an ordinary commercial relationship helps investigators map a social network. The business card first directs Amaia toward a possible connection; the registry then independently confirms that the firm represented Tremond’s companies. This is firmer than mere acquaintance, yet narrower than evidence of complicity. The records verify representation and business activity, while the suspected relationship among the clients, the old group, Berasategui, and the infant deaths remains a separate investigative question.

That distinction matters in a case where medical classifications and family accounts are also under scrutiny. Some infant deaths had been certified as sudden infant death after routine examinations, while the available records and the conduct of particular parents prompted further questions. Lejarreta y Andía does not supply a medical explanation or a direct account of any death. Its role is documentary and connective: it shows that a firm associated with commercial representation also represented a couple whose past and family history had become relevant to the inquiry. The investigation establishes that link, but the firm’s knowledge, intentions, and any involvement beyond legal and commercial representation remain unestablished.