what does “There was a missed beat.”mean?
“So, after she’d found out she could trust you…”
“Yeah, then she bought me the phone.”
There was a missed beat.
“So she cud get in touch wiv me whenever she wanted.”
She swept the sparkling pink Nokia suddenly off the table and stuffed it deep into the pocket of her squashy pink coat.

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thank you!

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Adding to what Eric said. The phrase "miss a beat" comes from music. If you miss a beat,  there is a noticeable gap in the music that most people would detect.  You could also call this gap  a discordance or dissonance. Generally it sounds disagreeable.
The normal usage of "miss a beat" would be something like the sentence - Without missing a beat, the person replied. This indicated quickness or intelligence or the absence of a pause.

So the author has used the phrase "miss a beat" in an unusual way indicating there was such a pause. It is an artistic use of the phrase which would capture the attention of an English native reader ... because it would make them think about the text.

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I believe it means that there was a slight pause in their conversation.

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