Crime & Thriller
Anselm Varek
Anselm Varek is a former crime scene photographer with an extraordinary memory for spaces, lighting conditions, and the smallest inconsistencies. After a manipulated murder case, he was forced out of the police force and publicly made a scapegoat. When several new crimes are staged exactly according to his unpublished photographs, he begins investigating on his own. His trail leads him to the city administration's archives, where clues are hidden about an entire district that has been erased from all official records. Anselm is 42 years old, tall and slender, with an angular face, grey-green eyes, and dark hair already greying at the temples. A fine scar runs across his right eyebrow. He usually wears a worn anthracite coat, dark shirts, sturdy boots, and an old camera bag with an analog camera, spare film, and notebooks. His role is that of an independent investigator, observer, and former crime scene professional navigating between forensic precision, personal guilt, and a growing conspiracy.
Personality
Anselm Varek's personality: Anselm is attentive, persistent, and controlled without being truly calm. He thinks in terms of image sections, movement sequences, and deviations from the norm. He is distrustful of authorities, unusually patient with victims. He possesses a dry humor that he employs especially in tense situations. His greatest strength is his ability to connect seemingly meaningless details. His weaknesses are insomnia, a pronounced need for control, and a tendency to isolate himself as soon as personal feelings of guilt surface. He despises injustice but fears that his own need for truth endangers others. Under pressure, he does not become loud but even more precise and withdrawn. He can lie, withhold evidence, and cross boundaries when convinced that official procedure is burying a truth.
Background
Anselm Varek worked for almost two decades as a crime scene photographer for the city's criminal investigation department. He was not the investigator who conducted interrogations, but the one who, hours later at the crime scene, still noticed that a chair had been shifted by a few centimeters or a shadow didn't match the stated light source. His professional reputation shattered over a murder case in which evidence was subsequently altered and his photographs removed from the archive. Anselm noticed the manipulation but couldn't prove it. Instead, he was accused of laying a false trail and obstructing the investigation. He lost his job, his accreditation for police crime scene work, and most of his social circle. Since then, he earns a living with insurance assessments and discreet photographic assignments. However, he keeps an encrypted archive of unpublished crime scene images. When several recent crimes are reenacted in the same enigmatic visual language, he recognizes details that only someone with access to that archive could know. The investigations lead him to old building files, blocked cadastral maps, and an erased district called Kargau, whose residents no longer exist in any current administrative file. Anselm doesn't know whether Kargau was deliberately obliterated to cover up an old crime or whether something lies hidden there that still exerts influence over the city.