Plot
Bruce Robertson, a detective sergeant in Edinburgh, is a scheming, manipulative and misanthropic bully who spends his free time indulging in drugs, alcohol, abusive sexual relationships, and "the games" – his euphemism for vindictive plots he hatches to cause trouble for people he dislikes, including many of his colleagues in the Lothian and Borders Police.
Bruce also delights in bullying and taking advantage of his mild-mannered friend Clifford Blades, a member of Bruce's masonic lodge, whose wife, Bunty, is the target of his repeated obscene phone calls. He only shows genuine warmth to Mary and her young son, the widowed wife and child of a man whom he tries and fails to resuscitate after he suffers a heart attack in the street.
As the story begins, Bruce's main goal is to gain a promotion to become Detective Inspector (DI), the path to which appears to open when he is assigned to oversee the investigation into the murder of a Japanese exchange student. However, Bruce slowly loses his grip on reality as he works the case and has more and more vivid hallucinations.
It is ultimately revealed through dream-like exchanges with Dr. Rossi, Bruce's psychiatrist, that he is on medication for bipolar disorder and has repressed immense feelings of guilt over a childhood accident that led to the death of his younger brother. Additionally, Bruce's wife, Carole, has recently left him and is denying him access to his daughter, Stacey.
These domestic issues have not only sparked his desperate bid for promotion, but played a part in his unusual displays of kindness toward Mary and her son. They have also led him to begin cross-dressing as his wife while off duty, in order to "keep her close" to him.
While wandering the streets cross-dressed, Bruce is kidnapped by a street gang led by the thuggish Gorman (who are responsible for the murder of the Japanese student) and is left badly beaten. However, he manages to kill Gorman by throwing him through a window and is found by his colleagues. Bruce not only misses out on the promotion as a result of the events, but is in fact demoted to Constable and is reassigned to uniform, while his friend and rookie Ray Lennox is promoted to Detective Inspector.
Afterwards, Blades receives a tape of Bruce apologising. Bruce then prepares to take his own life by hanging, but is interrupted at the last moment by Mary and her son knocking at his front door. He then breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience, repeating his catchphrase "same rules apply" and laughing as the chair slips from under him.
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