Sign up to emails. Subscribe to Byline Times. To support its work, subscribe to the monthly Byline Times print edition, packed with exclusive investigations, news, and analysis. A strong southerly wind is whipping off the Balearic sea. Julie Davis is leaning into it, shading her eyes, studying vessels dotting the bay of Barcelona Old Port.
The breakwater on which she stands — a functional 4. She is retracing what the police think were the last movements of her son Levi. Maritime rescuers, despite rapid dispatch and aerial support, returned 12 hours later with only a life ring thrown from the ship — the MSC Bellissima — from which four witnesses reported seeing or hearing a man in distress. No identity — in fact no further trace whatsoever — was established.
And then his passport turned up three weeks later in a security booth five kilometres away — under hotly disputed circumstances. This summer, they looked on with grim recognition as another young Briton, the year-old apprentice bricklayer Jay Slater, went missing on holiday in Tenerife. The Slater case went viral, transfixing the UK. Specialist sniffer dog teams rushed over from Madrid. Helicopters, drones, and Tik Tokkers scouring the remote interior of the Canary island. It raised ghosts for Julie.
When I look at the support for Jay I wonder why. It keeps running in my head. I feel bad for even thinking. I went to the authorities. Did I not shout loud enough? They are such similar cases except that one is in Tenerife and one is in Barcelona.
Julie spoke to many La Rambla regulars on previous visits to Barcelona in the weeks and months after Levi went missing. Sifting truth from fiction — however well-meaning the offers of information — is a treacherous job no grieving parent should face.
