The famous lawyer Choclán, defender of Aldama, reminds Isabel Pardo de Vera, former president of Adif, that she said the place where she saw her defendant the most in the ministry was on the third floor. “And what is on the third floor?” asks the sharp Choclán, who is interested in highlighting the familiarity between Ábalos and Aldama (the minister’s office is on the third floor). And Pardo de Vera begins: “Well, you get there, and you find yourself in a huge hall. To the left, you see a door that you have to ring. Then the porters appear, that door opens, and sometimes the three of them were there.”
The description is exactly like when they explain to you where an after is. That is, to enter Ábalos’s office was like entering an after. Everything initially clear and discreet, a little door all alone, some doormen looking you up and down, and when you enter, the usual ones at the back. Maybe it was even a real after. If there is a city capable of supporting that a minister’s office is an after, it is Madrid. Maybe once, leaving El Amante, a tall, strong guy with glasses approached you to say that for the next drink there was an “awesome” place near Nuevos Ministerios, the Third Floor. You didn’t go because his clothes smelled a bit like chistorra.
Honestly, worse things have been seen. But not better. You would go in there at eleven in the morning to have the last drink and come out with a concession from Ports of the State and a stamp in your hand.
“It surprised me to see Mr. Koldo and Aldama in the minister’s office, for an ethical reason,” says Isabel Pardo de Vera. They ask her if she got Jésica Rodríguez a job at Adif. She says she received the resume, which Koldo sent her on behalf of the minister. She understands it was on behalf of the minister because Koldo added that she should move the resume: “Otherwise, Jose cuts my balls off.” The full WhatsApp was: “Just one thing, have the girl called to start the procedures for hiring as an administrative of Joseba [García, Koldo’s brother and employee at Ineco], otherwise Jose cuts my balls off.”
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Pardo de Vera says she circulated the resume and washed her hands of it. “And nothing more. No big deal. I didn’t know that lady [Jésica] nor did I know what she was about.” No importance at all. That is, either she received resumes every day with those messages or Koldo’s balls mattered very little to her.
Isabel Pardo de Vera answers the questions asked and then keeps talking until the president of the court, Andrés Martínez Arrieta, encourages her to stop. This is curious because when one goes to testify in a trial, they usually choose their words carefully, but Pardo de Vera is choosing monologues. She talks and sometimes gets tangled up, and what Arrieta does is stop her in case she ends up hurting herself. These things happen all the time, not only in the Supreme Court. You answer a question so well that you get carried away, keep talking, and end up stuck in a mess you don’t even know how to get out of. We all need a Martínez Arrieta in our lives.
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