Nick claimed he had tried to call for an hour and the line was out. He had in fact left a message earlier and Victoria had only disconnected the phone at the jack a few minutes earlier, which would not result in the line being out of service.
If a phone is unplugged as took lace in the last few minutes, it would not place the line out of order as Jane and later Nick claimed. It would ring but the answering machine would not pick up.