Paris

Paris enters the investigation not as a place the team visits, but as the distance separating the investigators from a crucial witness. At the Clinique Rendflore near Porte de Montreuil, Jean Florian has been in intensive care for three months; because he can answer only by blinking, Darac’s team must pursue the possibility of questioning him through a relay.

Florian’s Hospitalization

After Granot receives a call, he tells Darac that Jean Florian has been residing at the Clinique Rendflore in Paris for the past three months, in intensive care. The duration and severity of the hospitalization immediately complicate the investigation: Florian is physically out of reach of events on the ground, but that does not establish that he was uninvolved. Darac considers both whether Florian could have planned what happened and whether he at least knew about it.

The hospital’s significance is sharpened by the limitation on communication. Asked whether Florian can speak by phone, the investigators learn that he can only blink yes or no. Paris therefore marks both a potential source of information and a practical barrier to obtaining it: the team cannot simply call and question him in the ordinary way.

A Remote Investigative Lead

The information about Paris arrives amid an urgent investigation in Nice. When Darac tries to reach Astrid, the call goes dead; unable to get a response, he immediately seeks help and asks Santoor whether a helicopter is over Boulevard des Anglais. The rapid shift from a failed call and an aerial request back to the Paris lead places Florian’s hospital bed within a widening effort to act on multiple fronts.

Darac later gives Frankie a concrete next step: contact the Clinique Rendflore again and conduct the relayed questioning of Jean Florian that they had discussed. The instruction does not resolve Florian’s role; it turns his limited ability to communicate into the next investigative procedure. Paris thus functions as an off-site node in the inquiry, where a patient who cannot speak may nonetheless be able to answer the questions on which the team’s understanding depends.