Winston?â
His eyes skirted again to the two-way mirror. âIs this the typical sort of questioning that is done when one is confessing to murder?â
âI donât know if thereâs any âtypicalâ questioning. This isnât like, whatâs that British cop show on PBS? Prime Suspect ? Itâs not like that. So, where were you born, Winston?â
âCheltenham.â
âProsperous area. Not far from Oxford.â
âRight.â
âThatâs convenient. A short hop to the olâ alma mater. You grew up with some means?â
He looked me straight in the eye for the first time. âYes. I did.â
âWhich helped you open Abbeyâs Road Pub.â
âVery much so.â He looked down at the table, a wave of sadness washing over him as a memory appeared to crop up unexpectedly.
âAre you okay?â
He swallowed hard and let out a hard breath. âYes. Iâm fine. Just quite tired.â
âYeah, fatigue tends to do strange things to a person. Defenses are lowered. Youâre not as sharp as you should be.â Winston looked at me warily. âFor example, you should have an upper-crust British accent. And yet, you donât. Thatâs the thing about the Brits. They still have levels of status that structure their existence. And each level of status has a
unique enunciation.â I tapped my ear. âBut you gotta have the ear for it.â I leaned back in the chair. âMy sergeant â Sergeant Weyler â he only watches PBS. I think he figured I needed some class in my life, so he taped a bunch of episodes of shows he liked. Prime Suspect was one. But the series that struck me the most was a classic called Upstairs/Downstairs. Iâm sure you know it. Itâs the upper class who live upstairs versus the working class who live downstairs. Upstairs/ Downstairs . Clever, eh?â I could see Winston squirming. âI watched a bunch of episodes and it was pretty damn good. And I started to get tuned into what a working-class accent sounded like versus that upper-crust intonation the wealthy class adopt. Thereâs quite a difference. And the two of those accents never meet. You either speak the working-class or the tight-ass wealthy dialect. And if your status changes from poverty to wealth, your accent does not. Look at John Lennon. He grew up in a rough working-class area, and after he acquired all the money and fame, he never adopted an upper-crust pronunciation. The opposite is also true.â I leaned forward. âYou donât grow up with means, as you told me you did, and sound like youâre from Liverpool. Your generation doesnât slum like that.â
Winston cleared his throat and sat up straighter. âSpend as much time in America as I have and your accent gets lazier. Ask any transplanted Brit. People even say I sound American at times.â
âDo they? Is that when you get tired at the end of a long day? Or talk in your sleep?â I leaned forward. âOr become emotional? Is that when your American accent creeps through?â
His chin began to tremble. I caught his eyes checking out one of the cameras in the corner of the room.
âWhen you were informed of your wifeâs death,â I continued, âI heard you say, â Sheâs my world .â And you said it with an American accent. It was one of the realer moments of your life because your defenses were down. Thatâs when the truth creeps out of a person. Shock takes over and you step outside yourself. But that wasnât the first time shock overwhelmed you, was it?â
Winston gripped the side of the metal table with his large hand. âPleaseâ¦can we not do this?â
I opened the manila folder and brought out the three items Iâd borrowed from the small brown box I found on Winstonâs closet shelf. I laid the first one on the table as his eyes grew larger. âRecognize that?
Learning to Kill: Stories