Bruce Robertson is a Detective Sergeant in Edinburgh, Scotland who is a scheming, manipulative, misanthropic bully who spends his free time indulging in drugs, alcohol, abusive sexual relationships, and "the games" — his euphemism for the vindictive plots he hatches to cause trouble for people he dislikes, including many of his colleagues. Robertson also delights in bullying and taking advantage of his mild-mannered friend Clifford Blades, a member of Robertson's Freemasonry lodge whose wife, Bunty, he repeatedly prank calls and asks for phone sex. The only people he shows any genuine warmth to are Mary and her young son, the widowed wife and child of a man whom Robertson tries and fails to resuscitate after he suffers a heart attack in the street.