The Police and the Limits of Law

This flow traces how legal institutions repeatedly fail to contain the novel's eroticized violence.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

Accident Inquiry

Accident Inquiry Investigation Police question the narrator about the collision that killed Charles Remington. Limitation The law treats the event as a problem of responsibility, while the narrator experiences it as a transformation of body and desire.

Accidental Verdict

Accidental Verdict Decision The coroner returns a verdict of accidental death and brings no manslaughter charge. Disjunction Legal closure fails to produce emotional closure. The narrator's private mythology continues beyond the institution's conclusion.

Police Frustration

Police Frustration Suspicion Police question Vaughan about a pedestrian's death and later remove his photographic equipment. Failure They identify danger without understanding its logic. Vaughan remains mobile because his crimes look like fragments of accident rather than a coherent project.

Public Obstruction

Public Obstruction Scene Police and ambulance workers try to clear crowds while Vaughan photographs injured victims. Conflict Emergency authority competes with spectatorship. The crowd's fascination repeatedly defeats attempts to restore the accident's privacy.

Posthumous Evidence

Posthumous Evidence Remains Police impound Vaughan's equipment and the wrecked cars connected with his project. Limits Evidence can catalogue the aftermath but cannot recover the emotional system that produced the crimes. Vaughan's logic survives in the narrator.

during the narrator's hospitalization

after the inquest

during Vaughan's surveillance campaign

during the major motorway crashes

after Vaughan's death