13
Lookout Point
Down in the square, a group of people were putting up Christmas lights. As Maggie wandered past, Phillip, the delicatessen owner, called Maggie over, so for a while she held the foot of a ladder while Phillip strung a line of candle-shaped bulbs along his shop front. Phillip hummed to himself the whole time, gently contented with his work, despite a broken string of lights in a basket at his feet.
‘Frost damage,’ he had told her when she asked, then shrugged his shoulders. ‘Can’t be helped, can it?’
As they worked, several people waved and smiled as they walked past. Maggie began to wonder if she was the only person in Hollydell who wasn’t blissfully happy.
‘So, are you travelling alone?’ Phillip said, climbing down the ladder after fixing the last light.
‘My boyfrie
