Name:David Fischer.
Age: 53 (D.O.B. May 14th, 1962)
Gender: Male.
Appearance:
Walking a razor’s edge between “lean” and “skinny,” David is of a middling height - and in possession of a respectable degree of musculature tone - with salt-and-pepper hair (leaning more towards grey-silver than anything) and a thick, jaw-encompassing beard. Though David has no tattoos, his left ear - upon close inspection - was pierced, many moons ago, and a handful of shallow scars dot his torso and legs from various brushes with danger.
Personality: Though a good man, David is - first and foremost - concerned with his own affairs; though intelligent, he is somewhat stoic, and typically reserved, an archetype Brit if ever there was such a man. In spite of his quiet nature, David is both a curious man, and the owner of a keen investigative mind.
Skills:* Having served in Her Majesty’s Armed Forces - specifically, the British Army - in the 1980s, David can defend himself with small arms and administer basic medical treatment, as well as navigate terrain both urban and countryside, with varying degrees of success. His “training,” of course, must be taken with a grain of salt, as David quickly expressed his written intent to withdraw from the Armed Forces in 1983, leaving service exactly four years and three months after his enlistment, in October of 1984.
* Spending quite a bit of his adult life traveling, David is reasonably well-cultured, and familiar with a handful of languages - Mandarin, German, and Russian - though conversationally at best.
* David is an impressive investigator, given that it was his career for twenty-some years.
Weakness:* David is farsighted, and as such cannot easily read up close without his glasses.
* Spending four years in the military took its toll on David’s body, and though he’s in decent shape, his age is catching up with him and his joints are prone to agitation and failure after extended use.
* David is a former smoker, and will more than likely resume the habit should the shit hit the fan on a global scale.
Equipment:* Clothing; a somewhat expensive suit with a lovely knee-length pea-coat overtop.
* A presumably semi-useless cellular phone.
* An expensive Rolex watch!
* An "antique" Zippo and a pack of Marlboros with one cigarette missing.
History:Though English, David was born in Drogheda, County Louth/Meath, Ireland. His father, a career officer, had been stationed in Ireland during the Troubles, and his mother had accordingly pulled up her roots to follow him. In the late ‘60s, following a series of “favors” to IRA supporting turn-coats, the Fischers snagged a new posting in Brighton & Hove, England.
Sunny and beautiful and coastal, Bright & Hove was something like a paradise resort to grow up in - though not without its own troubles. Crime was low, but not non-existant, and David - more of a rough-and-tumble type - did not fit in well with the posh locality. In his teenage years, David found himself in trouble more than once for some act of minor vandalism or shoplifting, quite a thug with his long hair and rock’n’roll t-shirts and whatnot.
In a bid to keep him from winding up in jail, David’s father convinced him to enlist in the army - at least for the minimum contract specification. Save up some money, see the world - what an opportunity!
No, not in the slightest. Fate, ever a dick, saw David stationed in Ireland during the worst of the Troubles in the 1980s. Though he saw very little combat, he nearly became the victim of multiple bombings and skirmishes. Eager to leave the military behind him, however, David expressed his desire to resign as soon as possible, leaving just over four years after his enlistment.
From there, David wandered, bumming about mainland Europe for months before settling in Brussels, where he became the entry-level aid of a private detective. Initially just wanting to pass the time and make some cash, David was surprised to find that he genuinely enjoyed investigate work, and had a certain knack for it, able to make illogical leaps to tye pieces of a case together.
David spend several years working in Brussels before deciding, apropos to nothing, that he wanted nothing more than to return home; he packed up his things, settled his estates, and moved back to England, this time settling in London, where his now-retired parents lived.
At the recommendation of an active government official - drinking buddies with David’s father - David’s sharp investigative mind was put to work for the Crown Estate, functioning an a hardly-official status as a man hunter for any pending escheatment cases.
Escheatment is, of course, the seizure of private property - bank accounts, homes, et cetera - for the use of national government. Though this might sound somewhat villainous, it is typically only done when no activity has been registered with that property in over half a decade - and, of course, if the government can verify that it has made every effort to locate the original owner of the property.
David functioned as a locater or private citizens whose property had fallen into inactivity for inexplicably long periods of time. This was, without a doubt, a very fascinating job, that frequently took him all across Europe in a wild attempt to locate wayward English citizens. More often than not, the person in question had died overseas and nobody in Britain had been notified - typically due to a lack of relatives or heirs within the country - though, occasionally, very fascinating individuals were discovered in the process of notifying them of their imminent asset forfeiture.
This is, naturally, how David found himself in Ashville, North Carolina, seeking out one Eliza Stetson to notify her that her bank account of nearly approximately £1.9m was in danger of being seized by the crown.
Post Sample:“Fuck it,” he said.
“Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it, absolutely fuck it,” he insisted.
“It’s okay - fuck it.” With that, he placed the cigarette between his lips.
“No,” he insisted loudly, snatching it out and throwing it angrily to the ground.
“Bloody hell, I’m sorry,” he murmured, picking up the cigarette and stroking it fondly. “I didn’t mean to cause a fuss - fuck it, right?” That established, he placed the cigarette between his lips and lit it with a flame produced from a rather old-looking Zippo. One drag was all he needed to remember his first love; sweet, ashy tar, quite bitter and disgusting - and with the smell of a men’s bathroom in a two-star Korean barbecue in a strip mall - but so blissfully enticing.
He immediately felt his muscles slacken, his lips twisting into a satisfied smile - perhaps more satisfied of a smile than anything else could ever place upon him.
“That’s it,” he declared, flicking the cigarette into the river below. Then, he leaned against the guard rail, staring down at the last spot that he had witnessed burning tobacco, wishing he had taken another hit.
“Fuck it, and fuck her,” he surmised aloud. Eliza Stetson was either dead, or beyond talented at covering her tracks. He’d return to Crown Estate and London and insist, on the good Queen’s bossom, that he could not locate Eliza Stetson.
