The Janus Complex

The Janus Complex - Graeme Gibson

November 1966, a dark winter's night in Glasgow, and someone is in trouble. Jamie Raeburn, hearing a call for help, goes to investigate and what follows changes Jamie's life forever.

He discovers a man, an American Naval Officer, being viciously assaulted by four other men ... but Jamie is alone and the odds are stacked against him and the American. Jamie, never one to dwell on odds, intervenes and in the ensuing fight ends up being stabbed and left for dead. Rushed to hospital Jamie undergoes emergency surgery and spends three days in Intensive Care and it's there he meets Kate Maxwell, a beautiful English nurse, and falls in love.

But Kate Maxwell is married and their affair ends some months later when Kate, threatened by loan sharks for money her husband has borrowed - and missing the baby daughter whose existence she has kept from Jamie - returns to England and her family in the village of Calverton, near Nottingham, in England's Midlands leaving both men in her life behind. This leads to a unexpected meeting between them Jamie visits Kate's home in an effort to find her. It also leads a violent confrontation with the loan sharks.

Jamie finally accepts that he has lost Kate but realises his reluctance to walk away from trouble in what is a violent city played a part in her decision. Intent on changing for the better he leaves his native Glasgow and heads south to Nottingham and a new job and, he hopes, a better future.

His new life in Nottingham starts well enough but trouble seems to follow him no matter where he goes. And then fate takes a hand. Returning early to his lodgings one night after a girl he has arranged to meet doesn't turn up he meets Lucie Kent and his life takes on meaning again. The couple fall in love and it isn't long before they are living together in Nottingham but Lucie, like Kate Maxwell before her, has dark secrets she finds it impossible to share with Jamie, afraid that if she does she will lose him. These secrets involve Max Kelman, gangster son of a notorious Derby gangster. Jamie, conscious that something is playing on Lucie's mind presses her to tell him and, reluctantly, she does.

But Lucie's revelations are much worse than Jamie expected and he realises he can't escape his past. He and Lucie are living a nightmare and confrontation with Max Kelman is inevitable. But winning the battle against Kelman will be difficult, if not impossible, and dangerous. It isn't only Kelman Jamie will have to defeat but the members of the Kelman gang. His first attempt ends in failure and he is lucky to escape with his life back to Glasgow but he is determined to return, Lucie's safety now uppermost in his mind. And so, a few weeks after his failed first attempt, with the help of the American he saved months before (Conor Whelan) and spiritual guidance from an old Glasgow Priest, Jamie returns to free Lucie from Kelman's clutches. In a violent conclusion Jamie confronts Max Kelman in the dark Derbyshire countryside with devastating consequences ... for both men.