The Suspect

8

A mechanic holds a carburetor in one blackened hand and gives me directions with the other. The pub is called the Tramway Hotel and Bert McMullen is usually at the bar.

“How will I recognize him?”

The mechanic chuckles and turns back to the engine, leaning inside the bowels of a bus.

I find the Tramway easily enough. Someone has scrawled graffiti on the blackboard outside: A beer means never having to say, “I’m thirsty.” Pushing through the door, I enter a dimly lit room, with stained floors and bare wooden furniture. Red bulbs above the bar give the place a pink tinge like a Wild West bordello. Black-and-white photographs of trams and antique buses decorate the walls, alongside posters for “live” music.

I take my time and count eight people, including a handful of teenagers playing pool in the back alcove, near the toilets. I stand in front of the beer taps, waiting to be served by a barman who can’t be bothered to look up from The Racing Post.

Bert McMullen is at the far end of the bar. His crumpled tweed jacket is patched at the elbows and adorned by various badges and pins, all related to buses. In one hand he holds a cigarette and in the other an empty pint glass. He turns the glass in his fingers, as if reading some hidden inscription etched into the side.

Bert growls at me. “Who you gawpin’ at?” His thick mustache appears to sprout directly from his nose and droplets of foam and beer are clinging to the ends of the gray-and-black hairs.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stare.” I offer to buy him another pint. He half turns and examines me. His eyes, like watery glass eggs, stop at my shoes. “How much did them shoes cost?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Gimme an estimate.”

I shrug. “A hundred pounds.”

He shakes his head in disgust. “I wouldn’t pick ’em up with two shitty sticks. You couldn’t walk more ’an twenty mile in them things before they fall apart.” He’s still staring at my shoes. He waves the barman over. “Hey Phil, get a load of these shoes.”

Phil leans over the bar and peers at my feet. “What d’you call them?”

“Loafers,” I answer self-consciously.

“Gerraway!” Both men look at each other in disbelief. “Why would you want to wear a shoe called a loafer?” says Bert. “You got more bum than brains.”

“They’re Italian,” I say, as if that makes a difference.

“Italian! What’s wrong with English shoes?”

“Nothing.”

Bert presses his face close to mine. I can smell baked beans. “I reckon anyone who wears shoes like that hasn’t done a proper day’s work in his life. You got to wear boots, kid, with a steel cap in the toe and some grip on the bottom. Them shoes of yours wouldn’t last a week in a real job.”

“Unless of course he works behind a desk,” says the barman.

Bert looks at me warily. “Are you one of the overcoat gang?”

“What’s that?”

“Never get your coat off.”

“I work hard enough.”

“Do you vote Labour?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

“Are you a Hail Mary?”

“Agnostic.”

“Ag-fucking-what?”

“Agnostic.”

“Jesus wept! OK, this is your last chance. Do you support the mighty Liverpool?” He crosses himself.

“No.”

He sighs in disgust. “Get off home, yer mam’s got custard waiting.”

I look between the two of them. That’s the problem with Scousers. You can never tell whether they’re joking or being serious until they put a glass in your face.

Bert winks at the barman. “He can buy me a drink, but he can’t fiddle ass around. ’E’s got five minutes before he can bugger off.”

Phil grins at me. His ears are laden with silver rings and dangling pendants.

The pub has tables arranged along the walls, leaving a dance floor in the center. The teenagers are still playing pool. The only girl among them looks underage and is dressed in tight jeans and a singlet top, revealing her bare midriff. The boys are trying to impress her but her boyfriend is easy to spot. Bulked up by weight training he looks like an abscess about to explode.

Bert is watching the bubbles rise to the head of his Guinness. Minutes pass. I feel myself getting smaller and smaller. Finally he raises the glass to his lips and his Adam’s apple bobs up and down as he swallows.

“I wanted to ask you about Lenny Morgan. I asked at the depot. They said you were friends.”

He shows no emotion.

I keep going. “I know he died in a fire. I know you worked with him. I just want to find out what happened.”

Bert lights a cigarette. “I can’t see how it’s any of your business.”

“I’m a psychologist. Lenny’s son is in a spot of bother. I’m trying to help him.” As I hear the words I feel a pinprick of guilt. Is that what I’m trying to do? Help him.

“What’s his name?”

“Bobby.”

“I remember him. Lenny used to bring him down the depot during the holidays. He used to sit up back and ring the bell to signal the driver. So what’s he done?”

“He beat up a woman. He’s about to be sentenced.”

Bert smiles sardonically. “That sort of shit happens. You ask my old lady. I’ve hit her once or twice but she punches harder than I do. It’s all forgotten in the morning.”

“This woman was badly hurt. Bobby dragged her out of a cab and kicked her unconscious in a busy street.”

“Was he shagging her?”

“No. He didn’t know her.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“I’m assessing him.”

“So you’re trying to get him banged up?”

“I want to help him.”

Bert snorts. Headlights from the road outside slide over the walls. “It’s all gin and oranges to me, son, but I can’t see what Lenny has to do with it. He’s been dead fourteen years.”

“Losing a father can be very traumatic. Perhaps it can help explain a few things.”

Bert pauses to consider this. I know he’s weighing up his prejudices against his instincts. He doesn’t like my shoes. He doesn’t like my clothes. He doesn’t like strangers. He wants to snarl and push his face into mine, but he needs a good enough reason. Another pint of Guinness has the casting vote.

“You know what I do every morning?” Bert says.

I shake my head.

“I spend an hour lying in bed, with my back so fucked up I can’t even roll over to reach my fags. I stare at the ceiling and think about what I’m going to do today. Same as every day, I’m going to get up, hobble to the bathroom, then to the kitchen and after breakfast I’m going to hobble down here and sit on this stool. Do you know why?”

I shake my head.

“Cos I’ve discovered the secret of revenge. Outlive the bastards. I’ll dance on their graves. You take Maggie Thatcher. She destroyed the working class in this country. She closed down the mines, the docks and the factories. But she’s rusting away now— just like those ships out there. She suffered a stroke not so long ago. Don’t matter whether you’re a destroyer or a dinghy— the salt always gets you in the end. And when she goes I’m gonna piss on her grave.”

He drains his glass as though washing away the bad taste in his mouth. I nod to the barman. He starts pouring another.

“Did Bobby look like his father?”

“Nah. He was a big pudding of a lad. Wore glasses. He worshiped Lenny, trailed after him like a puppy dog, running errands and fetching him cups of tea. When Lenny brought him to work, he’d sit outside of here and drink lemonade while Lenny had a few pints. Afterward they’d cycle home.”

Bert is warming up. “Lenny used to be a merchant seaman. His forearms were covered in tattoos. He was a man of very few words, but if you got him talkin’ he’d tell you stories about his tattoos and how he got each one of ’em. Everybody liked Lenny. People smiled when they spoke his name. He was too nice a bloke. Sometimes folks can take advantage of that…”

“What do you mean?”

“You take his wife. I can’t remember her name. She was some Irish Catholic shopgirl, with big hips and a ripcord in her knickers. I heard tell that Lenny only screwed her the once. He was too much of a gentleman to say. She gets pregnant and tells Lenny the baby is his. Anyone else would have been suspicious, but straightaway Lenny marries her. He buys a house— using up all the money he’d saved from going to sea. We all knew what his missus was like: a real Anytime Annie. Half the depot must have ridden her. We nicknamed her ‘Number Twenty-two’— our most popular route.”

Bert looks at me sadly, flicking ash from his sleeve. He explains how Lenny had started at the garage as a diesel mechanic and then taken a pay cut to go on the road. Passengers loved his funny hats and his impromptu songs. When Liverpool beat Real Madrid in the final of the European Cup in 1981, he dyed his hair red and decorated the bus with toilet paper.

Lenny knew about his wife’s indiscretions, according to Bert. She flaunted her infidelity— dressing herself in miniskirts and high heels. Dancing every night at the Empire Ballroom and the Grafton.

Without warning, Bert windmills his arm as though wanting to punch something. His face twists in pain. “He was too soft— soft in the heart, soft in the head. If it were raining soup Lenny would be stuck with a fork in his hand.

“Some women deserve a slap. She took everything… his heart, his house, his boy… Most men would have killed her. Most men weren’t like Lenny. She sucked him dry. Drained his spirit. She spent a hundred quid a month more than he earned. He was working double shifts and doing the housework as well. I used to hear him pleading with her over the phone— ‘Are you staying in tonight, pet?’ She just laughed at him.”

“Why didn’t he leave her?”

He shrugs. “Guess he had a blind spot. Maybe she threatened to take the kid. Lenny wasn’t a wimp. I once seen him throw four hooligans off his bus because they were upsetting the other passengers. He could handle himself, Lenny. He just couldn’t handle her.”

Bert falls silent. For the first time I notice how the bar has filled up and the noise level has risen. The Friday night band is setting up in the corner. People are looking at me; trying to work out what I’m doing. There is no such thing as anonymity when you’re the odd one out.

The red lights have started to sway and the wooden floorboards echo. I’ve been trying to keep up with Bert, drink for drink.

I ask about the accident. Bert explains that Lenny sometimes used the engineering workshop of a weekend to build his inventions. The boss turned a blind eye. The weekend buses were running, but the workshop was empty.

“How much do you know about welding?” Bert asks.

“Not much.”

He pushes his beer aside and picks up two coasters. Then he explains how two pieces of metal are joined together by using concentrated heat. Normally the heat is generated in two ways. An arc welder uses a powerful arc of electricity, with low voltage and high current generating temperatures of 11,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Then you have oxy-fuel welders, where gases such as acetylene or natural gas are mixed with pure oxygen and burned to create a flame that can carve through metal.

“You don’t muck around with this sort of equipment,” he says. “But Lenny was one of the best welders I ever saw in me life. Fellas used to say he could weld two pieces of paper together.

“We always took a lot of precautions in the workshop. All flammable liquids were stored in a separate room from the cutting or welding. We kept combustibles at least thirty-five feet away. We covered the drains and kept fire extinguishers nearby.

“I don’t know what Lenny was building. Some people joked it was a rocket ship to send his ex-wife into outer space. The blast knocked an eight-ton bus onto its side. The acetylene tank blew a hole through the roof. They found it a hundred yards away.

“Lenny finished up near the roller doors. The only part of his body that hadn’t been burned was his chest. They figure he must have been lying down when the fireball engulfed him because that part of his shirt was only slightly singed.

“A couple of the drivers dragged him clear. I still don’t know how they managed it… what with the heat and all. I remember them saying afterward how Lenny’s boots were smoking and his skin had turned to crackling. He was still conscious but he couldn’t speak. He had no lips. I’m glad I didn’t see it. I’d still be having nightmares.” Bert puts his glass down and his chest heaves in a short sigh.

“So it was an accident?”

“That’s what it looked like at first. Everyone figured a spark from the welder had ignited the acetylene tank. There might have been a hole in the hose, or some other fault. Maybe gas had accumulated in the tank he was welding.”

“What do you mean ‘at first’?”

“When they peeled off Lenny’s shirt they found something written on his chest. They say every letter was inch-perfect— but I don’t believe that— not when he was writing upside down and left to right. He used a welding torch to burn the word ‘SORRY’ into his skin. Like I said, he was a man of very few words.”