Baddies in books: DS Bruce Robertson in Irvine Welsh’s Filth

The bent copper is Welsh’s darkest character, but beneath the sadistic surface, there’s a squirming sense of conflict – and it’s a consequence of his past as much as his talking tapeworm

Forget James McAvoy and those redemptive to-camera monologues. The literary version of Irvine Welsh’s DS Bruce Robertson is so slimy and poisonous even Attenborough (David, not Richard) wouldn’t handle him. A middle-aged caveman sustained by Kit-Kats and prejudice, with galloping eczema around his nether regions and trousers so shiny you could do your makeup in them, “Robbo” is an old-school copper bent on promotion. And, boy, don’t we just love him.

Officers today still tell Irvine Welsh: “We all know a Robbo,” when he signs their copies of Filth. That means in every station, there’s a wiffy psychopath who wants to turn your noise complaint into a sex-crime confession. This is just one of the tricks the dirty DS pulls while pounding the streets of Edinburgh in 1997.

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