Chapter 41

Outside the museum, we thanked Richard Masson and Carlie Edgeway for their assistance. Richard Masson set off back to his office but Ms Edgeway indicated she wanted a private word with me, so we moved a short way from the others.

“Jon, I overheard what you said to Dr Wells. You were arranging a discreet way to contact Dr Giovanelli, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Since we haven’t had your reconciliation appraisal meeting yet, you can still keep the phone I gave you. If you were to use it to communicate with Dr Giovanelli, it would show up on phone company records as belonging to my office of the law firm. We wouldn’t reveal who had the use of it without a court order, and since we deal with vulnerable families and their members, the courts would be extremely reluctant to grant such an order. But be sensible; keep the foreign use to a minimum so the calls don’t stand out on our bill.”

“Thank you. I promise not to abuse it.”

“One last question. Is the reconciliation still progressing?”

“Yes. Dad went out of his way to authorise two more coins to be appraised by experts in this country, and Saturday he took me to FreshFields to collect my personal possessions. He’s slowly earning my trust again.”

“I’m glad for you.”

Ms Edgeway said goodbye to Mum, then she too set off back to work leaving Mum, Dad, Janey and me.

“Your plan to steal the coin back somehow involves sleepwalking, doesn’t it?” asked Dad, not looking enthused at the prospect.

I nodded.

“I think we need to talk about this. Family meeting tonight.”

Mum nodded her agreement.

Dad left us for his appointment with a client and Mum drove Janey and me to school, where Janey reluctantly got out and entered the campus. Then Mum dropped me off back home before heading to the law firm’s office where she worked with Richard Masson.

When I got home, I was still shell-shocked from the revelation that the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage had effectively stolen my coin. I didn’t feel up to the task of tackling schoolwork so I read some more of the second Russian doorstop novel until lunch time.

While I was eating, more questions formed in my mind. Could I sleepwalk all the way from home to Rome? Perhaps distance was the reason I hadn’t managed to sleepwalk into Emma Watson’s bed. And even if I could, how would I get back? I didn’t want to use any of the girls at school without permission, and I was pretty sure that wouldn’t be forthcoming. And I didn’t want to take advantage of Mrs Thomas again: she’d already done more than enough for me, including keeping my secrets from Dex. Could I even still sleepwalk? Since escaping from Freshfields, I’d been successful in trying not to.

I decided it was worth risking a test. Thinking of Dr Giovanelli, I would start to masturbate and, if I developed a headache in the back of my head and it felt as though it were escalating, I’d try to abort. I’d been very close to sleepwalking to Ms Edgeway when I dreamt about her, but woke up in the nick of time to avoid disaster. That gave me some confidence I could handle the situation.

After I’d cleared up my lunch things, I retired to my bedroom. I grabbed a wad of tissues just in case and started masturbating to my recollection of Dr Giovanelli. My dick had no problem getting hard. As my arousal grew, I felt the familiar pain in the back of my head start up, but it failed to escalate and eventually I stopped trying and let my dick start to soften.

Suddenly, my image of Dr Giovanelli morphed into that of her younger lookalike, Claudia Ranieri, and I was off the to races. My dick was hard again and I felt pain mushroom from the back of my head. I immediately realised how serious the situation was and started to panic: Claudia Ranieri was almost certainly in class at school and she was about to disappear in front of a room full of people and end up in bed with me. I couldn’t let that happen. I forced my hands away from my dick and tried to relax but I couldn’t. I fought against the headache with all my might. The pain was unimaginable and the effort of fighting against it was exhausting; sweat poured off me. I continued fighting until I ran out of strength, then I blacked out.