The next morning, the sky was grey but dry.
Nora and Tom sat in the station, tired.
The car from last night had disappeared into the dark.
"No number, no colour, no driver's face," Tom said.
Then the door opened, and Mrs. Bell walked in.
She carried a cake and a very important face.
"I saw something," she said. "Something ."
"Why didn't you tell us before?" Tom asked.
"I thought it was a dream. But after last night, I am not so sure."
Nora poured her a cup of tea.
"Please start from the beginning, Mrs. Bell."
"It was the night Ivy disappeared. It was raining hard."
"I could not sleep, so I looked out of the window."
"And there she was — a woman on the cliff path."
"She wore a long red coat. , dark red."
Nora thought of the painting in Ivy's studio.
The figure by the sea wore the same coat.
"What did she do?" Nora asked quietly.
"She stood still for a long time, looking at the sea."
"Then she walked slowly in the rain, like she was not afraid of it."
"And then she went through the closed gate — like a !"
Tom looked at Nora and tried not to smile.
Everyone in town knew Mrs. Bell loved a good story.
But sometimes a big story carries one small true thing inside it.
"My mother used to talk about a lady in red on that path," Mrs. Bell added.
"It is an old, old story in this town."
"One more thing," she said, taking a piece of cake.
"A grey has parked on our twice this week."
"Nobody ever parks there. And its back light was broken."
This time, Nora wrote down every word.
That afternoon, she walked the cliff path alone.
The sea wind pulled at her coat.
The gate was old, but it was real, and it was locked.
Then, in the soft beside the path, she saw it.
A — small, , a woman's .
It was made after the rain began that night.
Nora took a photo and stood up slowly.
Ghosts do not leave footprints.