Page 75 of Cover Story

‘Then you have to figure that outin situ,I’m sorry,’ Toby said, leaning forward on his elbows. ‘We’re out on a limb here as it is, hoping the strength of the Ring video evidence will negate the manner by which we acquired it.’

‘But we’re robbing that?’ Bel said.

‘Copying sensitive data and pilfering an expensive thing are two different activities, neither are without risk but one is far greater than the other,’ Toby said. ‘Albert, this feels like your purview?’

Albert coughed into life.

‘Yes, that’s correct. With the doorbell camera we could argue if she left the device around and open in your presence, then it is tantamount to photographing a page in an open diary. It’s snooping, yes, but in the public interest. Once you remove the device from the premises you have simply stolen her property.’

‘Which I can’t do?’ Bel said.

‘Which you can’t do,’ Albert confirmed. ‘We are bending the law, not breaking it.’

‘Right,’ Bel said, chewing her lip. ‘This limitation might’ve been useful to know from the outset. Still, limitations make you more creative.’

Much as Bel wanted to howl, she had to accept compound error. Until Connor raised the time frame for copying the footage, Bel had never thought on logistics much beyond accessing the iPad.

‘We do this not because it is easy …’ Toby began.

‘But because we thought it would it be less hard than this,’ Connor said.

Toby chortled and Bel realised he’d never thought this was going to work. He’d been playing along so the plucky podcaster gal felt she still got to try things.

‘Oh, and you two, have a fab time at the awards tomorrow! Schmooze your butts off, please. That table cost an arm anda leg but worth it for presence, I think. But it’ll have none without you working the room and pressing the flesh.’

Bel saidsure thing,we’ll be belles of the ball,no pun,speak soon,smiled a false smile and hit End Meeting. She closed the laptop to be sure.

‘Great. No concern for how impossible our task just became, much excitement about us eating toad in the hole with the presenters of Smooth Radio North West. The real Operation Mincemeat: we’re dead in the water.’

‘How do we pull this off?’ Connor said. ‘The undercover sting not the toad in the hole.’

‘Spoiler: we can’t. We’re screwed. Totally,’ Bel said. She saw his surprise she didn’t have a workaround. If she wasn’t so gutted she might’ve been flattered.

‘Really?’

‘Even if I manage to see Amber’s passcode, and we make a grab for the iPad, the idea we can hide it for hours while it’s uploading to a second device? I know you think I am a vainglorious dipshit,’ Bel said and Connor smiled, ‘but even I don’t think that’s feasible. That is beyond the bounds of credibility.’

‘I can’t go to the loo, get it on my way past, hide it in the men’s somehow …?’

‘But if it goes missing right after I’ve asked Amber to look at it …?’ Bel said. ‘If they hunt for it while we’re still there and find the upload in progress?’

‘Yeah. Sheesh. What do we do? We’re committed to the lock-in as it stands?’ Connor said.

Bel tapped her pen on the dining-room table.

‘We carry on and hope the answer comes to us in the meanwhile.’

‘Ah, the old Bel Macauley approach of:it’ll be all right on the night?’

‘More or less.’

‘Toby told me to learn everything I could from you. I’m certainly doing that.’

‘Oh, really?’ Bel said.

‘Yep.’ Connor counted off on his fingers: ‘Hope is a plan, starters make people uptight, and Big Celery control the media.’

Bel laughed. She was grateful to him for responding to this setback with good humour. She didn’t feel humorous.

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