The drawings were crude, but familiar.
They showed landmarks from the route Arthur often walked with Leo.
The park.
The bakery.
The postbox at the corner.
Their own front door.
Hannah looked at the notebook.
Then back at her son.
“Did Grandad make these?”
Leo nodded enthusiastically.
“Gandad game!”
Her throat tightened.
For several minutes, Hannah sat on the floor sorting the scattered pieces.
Some were intact cards Arthur had deliberately cut for the game. Others were pages that had come loose when the envelope tore. The notebook itself was bent and had a damaged binding, but it had not been destroyed.
Leo watched her.
Whenever she placed a picture in the wrong order, he protested.
“No!”
Hannah tried not to smile.
“All right. Show me.”
He moved the drawing of the bakery beside the park.
“Bread.”
“Yes.”
He tapped the postbox.
“Red!”
Hannah studied the page.
Then she noticed faint marks on the reverse side of one piece.
She turned it over.
There were pencil lines, but they were difficult to see in the dim sitting room.
She reached for the small torch she kept in a drawer for power cuts.
When she shone it across the paper at a low angle, the indentations became more visible.
Arthur had pressed hard enough while drawing on a page above that a second, fainter version of the route remained impressed beneath it.
Hannah angled the torch again.
The lines were not a hidden secret message.
They were simply the marks of an old man’s hand.
But they revealed that Arthur had been copying the same route repeatedly.
On the back of another page, beneath the impression of a drawing, she found a sentence.
IF CONFUSED, STOP. ASK FOR HELP. SHOW ADDRESS CARD.
Hannah stared.
She turned another page.
There was a drawing of the park bench beneath a large chestnut tree.
Beside it, Arthur had written:
THE QUIET BENCH NEAR THE SOUTH GATE.
LEO LIKES TO WATCH THE PIGEONS HERE.
Hannah felt the room tilt.
The bench.
Arthur had taken Leo there often.
It was close to the route between the bakery and home, but slightly off the main path.
A place he might recognise.
A place he might stop if he became frightened.
She picked up her phone.
The police already had several officers checking the streets around the bakery and the park.
Hannah shared the information from the notebook, including the illustrated route and the bench near the south gate. She explained that Arthur had repeatedly drawn these landmarks as memory aids.
The officer on the telephone listened carefully.
“We’ll have the area checked,” he said.
Hannah looked toward Leo.
The boy was fitting two puzzle pieces together.
“Could he have gone there?” she asked.
“It’s possible. We’ll follow up on it.”
She swallowed.
“I want to go.”
“We can arrange for you to help with identification if needed, but please don’t go searching alone with your little boy. Stay reachable, and we’ll coordinate.”
Hannah agreed.
She called Mrs Patel into the sitting room and explained what she’d found.
The neighbour studied the drawings.
“Arthur made all these?”
Hannah nodded.
“For Leo.”
MMrsPatel looked at the child’s small table.
Leo was holding the picture of the bear beside the park bench.
“Gandad,” he announced.
MrMrsatel crouched.
“That’s right, darling.”
Hannah looked down at her son.
A few minutes earlier, she had been angry with him for touching the notebook.
Now she understood that he had recognised a game she had barely noticed.
She knelt beside him.
“Leo.”
He looked up.
“Mummy?”
“I’m sorry I shouted.”
He stared at her.
She touched his cheek.
“You were trying to show me Grandad’s pictures, weren’t you?”
Leo held up the bear.
“Find!”
Hannah managed a small, trembling smile.
“Yes, sweetheart.”
She pulled him into her arms.
“We’re trying.”
Arthur was sitting on the bench near the south gate when the rain began.
He had arrived there almost by accident.
After leaving the bakery, he had walked through unfamiliar streets until he recognised a row of trees beyond a low stone wall. The park seemed familiar, and he followed the path inside.
For a while, he felt better.
He knew the place.
