‘Seals.’
‘Oh, go away and leave me alone. I’m busy. I’m fishing.’
‘You may be fishing, but you’re not catching a damned thing. Your Jock Scott might as well be stuck in your hat. Now you listen to me.’
‘I will not listen to you. All right, there are singing sands in the Islands! All right, there are walking stones! All right, there are gabby seals! It has nothing to do with me. And I don’t suppose it had anything to do with B Seven.’
‘No? What was he going North for?’
‘To bury a relation, to sleep with a woman, to climb a rock! How should I know? And why should I care?’
‘He was going to stay at a Caledonian Hotel somewhere.’
‘He was not.’
‘How do you know where he was going to stay?’
‘I don’t. Nobody does.’