When the bombs exploded, the booking clerk from whom the men had purchased tickets informed police that a man with an Irish accent, dressed in a dust-covered purple suit, had purchased a ticket to travel to the coastal village of Heysham, en route to Belfast. The man had then run onto the train. A spot check on ticket sales that evening revealed that four further tickets to travel to Belfast via Heysham had also been issued. Within three hours of the bombings, each man had been detained at Heysham Port and taken to Morecambe police station to undergo forensic tests to eliminate them as suspects in the bombings. Each man expressed their willingness to assist in these inquiries, having informed the officers of a half-truth as to the reason they had been travelling to Belfast: that they intended to visit their families, although they also intended to attend McDade's funeral.