Promise

‘You’d still have to be quick, to avoid detection,’ added Alain.

‘I could do it in under five minutes, I promise, but how will you get the phone? Bella took it upstairs with her,’ said Brontë.

‘If we say we want to call Kim to tell her where we are, she would lend it to us, I feel sure.’

’She is still awake upstairs, I can hear her moving about,’ said Hugo. ‘I’ll see if she will let us use it.’ He stood and moved towards the door. ‘Alain, what is this?’ He pointed to a handset on a side table. ‘Is this a different sort of telephone communication?’

Alain joined him. ‘It’s not a mobile phone but it seems to be joined to some system-’ his eyes ran along the cable to the small box attached to the wall beneath the window ledge. ‘Let’s try it.’ He picked up the handset and put it to his ear. A tone began almost immediately as he listened.

Upstairs, Bella heard the discreet ‘ting’ on her bedroom extension as the landline engaged downstairs. Who were they calling? Moments later, she heard a second ‘ting’ as the handset disengaged. She shrugged. Probably calling Kim.They were such a polite group of young people. Great example to her girls, she thought. Had she know how much data had been grabbed in those few moments, to be reflected on her next bill, she might have had a different idea of her guests.