The police force

The police force appears as a conspicuous authority over public movement, yet offers Bérenger no practical help in pursuing the Killer. In a traffic-clogged scene of whistles, trucks, and shouted directions, its officers can move people and vehicles but will not take up his urgent request to report evidence. The disparity between command and responsibility gives the institution its central dramatic force: public order is maintained, while a murder inquiry is treated as somebody else’s business.

Appearance and Public Authority

A police sergeant enters while an engine drowns out the voices of the crowd and the characters onstage. Visible only from head to waist, he taps at invisible people beyond a wall with a white stick. His unusual height and partly obscured appearance make him a striking stage image of authority: he is seen issuing commands, while those he directs remain out of view. A huge military truck then blocks half the upper stage, making the scene’s vehicles and obstructions part of the institution’s visual environment.

The crowd cries out in support of the police as the officer keeps moving people along, and its noise gradually dies away. This is a clear instance of the force exercising collective control: the crowd is dispersed, not persuaded, and the sergeant’s repeated intervention has an immediate effect on what can be heard and seen. Yet the scene does not establish a broad account of police organization or policy. Its evidence is concentrated in the conduct of officers during this encounter, where public authority is tangible but narrowly exercised.

Traffic Control as Stage Action

A second officer’s directions turn traffic management into comic disorder. He calls for movement in several opposing directions, and the instructions affect more than the old man who asked for directions: the first officer moves his head and stick in obedience, Bérenger makes matching gestures without leaving his place, a soldier does the same with his flowers, and the old man steps through the sequence of commands. Even the two trucks move. Rather than producing a clear route, the instructions briefly make the entire stage participate in the confusion.

Bérenger registers the sameness of the officers’ voices, but he also distinguishes one voice from the Killer’s: in an aside, he decides that one speaker is not the man he seeks because the voice is not as hard. The officers therefore occupy two roles in the scene. They direct the movement that obstructs his journey, while their voices become possible clues in his search. When an officer orders Bérenger to move on, Bérenger comments on the trucks and the officer’s apparent dislike of them; the exchange does not relieve the hold-up, which Bérenger calls a disaster.

Bérenger’s Appeal and the Limits of Duty

The institutional conflict sharpens when Bérenger turns from traffic to the murder investigation. He assumes that the officer knows his case and says that he is looking for the Killer. The officer instead describes Bérenger as interfering with traffic control. Bérenger insists that there is evidence and explains that Édouard has it in his briefcase; he is on his way to the Prefecture and asks whether someone can accompany him. The request joins a concrete investigative lead to an immediate need for assistance, but the officer does not accept either as a reason to intervene.

Bérenger tries again, invoking his friendship with the Superintendent and The Architect. The first officer remains occupied with traffic, while the second replies that the matter is outside his department and points to his traffic-control assignment. The exchange gives the refusal a bureaucratic form: Bérenger’s appeal is not answered on its merits so much as sorted into the wrong jurisdiction. His claims of evidence, connection, and urgency do not alter the officers’ stated task.

Indifference and Dramatic Significance

The refusal becomes blunt when Bérenger declares that the criminal must pay for his crime. One officer dismisses people who talk too much; the other says that the case is not his concern, tells Bérenger to seek the boss, and demands peace for himself. His final direction points toward the back of the stage, but the trucks block the way even as he says the road is clear. The discrepancy between the instruction and the visible obstruction turns the encounter’s central irony into stage business: the officer can declare a route open without making it passable.

The scene does not show the police force pursuing the Killer or verifying Bérenger’s evidence. Instead, it shows officers responding to immediate movement problems and refusing to leave that assigned role, even when Bérenger frames his appeal as a matter of justice. Their whistles, gestures, and commands have effects on the crowd and vehicles; their authority is therefore not absent. Its limit is that this power does not become assistance. The institution’s dramatic significance lies in that contrast: it can make people move, but Bérenger cannot make it act on the danger he reports.