Robert McGraw is an agent with the Special Branch.
That means that McGraw is both a policeman and an operative, working in the organization which in Britain straddles that border between being a crook-catcher and a spy-catcher.
He started out as the former, of course. That was almost always the way it was done with the Special Branch. He had worked for more than a few years with CID and earned his Detective Sergeant stripes many times over finding and putting away a lot of very nasty people doing very nasty things to others. Then he made the move to the Branch and continued to find and put away those who would do harm to his country.
McGraw is an interesting man in that he is friendly enough with his co-workers and the people he meets in his work but he is not very forthcoming about himself, even to us. We learn through a couple of very short and sweet statements that he lives in the western edge of London (Acton, actually) and shares his apartment with his "partner Karen". He mentions her but a couple of times in the numerous adventures we have and then always in passing. That does not mean he is a cold fish by any means; it could be just that he practices the art of listening over that of talking.
Some things he does let us know, through actions and not words, is that he is very good at his job and that he really enjoys doing it.
Good Line:
- About a petty crook about to find a good deal of trouble, "[he] had all the makings of a man destined either for a lifetime in prison or an early, possibly unmarked, grave".
- Regarding a paid assassin, "People like Gant were used to do the dirty work Government wanted to be able to deny."
- When asked by a junior colleague if he had a problem with the late Margaret Thatcher's politics, McGraw replied, "I have a problem with everyone's politics."