Missing a little man in a big world

Sam Trott stood barely three feet tall.

That's shorter than the shrubs between his house and the neighbours'.

It's lower than the bumper bar of the four-wheel-drive perched on the verge up the street. You might have chanced a glimpse of him through the metal gate of the big house at the intersection. But only if you had known to look.

We have so many questions about this tragedy, not least of which is how could a child walk all that way without someone noticing him? The answer is: devastatingly easily.

Starting at 10.30am, about the same time Sam was last seen, I wandered from his neat home towards the park he loved so much.

Past limestone retaining walls that would have shielded him from view. Across deserted driveways. Blinds are drawn and garage doors down to protect against the summer heat.

Walking about the same pace my own toddler ambles, within two minutes I'm at an intersection. I find shade on the verge, near a bright bougainvillea, then cross the road. There's no traffic.

Commuters have been at their desks for hours. School drop-offs are done. The postie won't be here for another 48 minutes.

The cul-de-sacs and long, sweeping roads discourage through-traffic. It's part of the appeal of Landsdale and so many suburbs like it. A nice, quiet place to raise the kids.

There are signs of children everywhere. A pram parked on a porch. A soccer ball in the garden. A miniature Sherrin, probably someone's favourite footy, wedged and fading on a roof.

It is, in the kindest sense, so normal.

I walk down a short bicycle path between two houses and see a strip of green at the end of the street: Warradale Park. A pair of doves startle and fly away and I'm suddenly quite alone and unsettled.

I haven't seen another person for seven minutes. That's a long time in our modern, crowded lives.

A young bloke strides with purpose off a building site. Dressed in white, he looks like a painter or plasterer. He gets into his ute, P-plates on the back, and slowly pulls away. He looks like he's got a lot on his mind. The chance of him seeing a tiny child wandering the street? Remote. He didn't even see me.

A woman walks past. A half-smile and introduction. Pamela is a local. She's friendly and knows her suburb well. She's wandering the same route as me, trying to make sense of what has happened.

She spots a CCTV camera watching over the immaculate gardens and front lawn of a cream brick house and knocks on the door. The garage door opens a well-dressed gent appears, offering a firm handshake.

The police have been in touch, the CCTV has been checked. It saw nothing. Maybe Sam didn't wander this way?

We talk for four or five minutes, exchanging expressions of comfort and disbelief, before I continue down the hill, following the big blue cartoon footprints painted on the footpath.

I cross Southmead Drive unhindered, and approach Landsdale Primary School, where children play under big, floppy hats and a teacher hurries across the yard.

I've walked about 400m in 14 minutes. Apart from the quick chat with Pamela and the gent with the CCTV, I'm pretty sure nobody has seen me.

How, then, could anyone be expected to see little Sam?

Despite its vast open spaces, there are plenty of pockets in Warradale Park where you can't be seen. The lawns heave and dale, creating culverts which could easily hide a child. Stands of trees create privacy.

It's a big place, a lovely place. But it is plain that a child could wander here unseen.

Even if someone had seen Sam they may not have twigged that something was amiss.

I've walked just over 600m in 22 minutes. There are a handful of people now. A woman walking an ageing Jack Russell says hi. Another reins in two poodles.

The women look like they might have been mothers. They definitely would have stopped to help if they had seen Sam. They would have brought that precious child back to his mum and dad.

That's the kind of neighbourhood this is. It's the kind of people we are.

But nobody saw Sam. Somehow, the ebb and flow of traffic, the morning routine of the dog walkers, and Sam's size - so tiny in a big, big world - conspired to allow him to walk unchecked through a neighbourhood which would so desperately seek him hours later.