The Hongcouver | After midnight in a dark Vancouver park, a murdered schoolgirl and unanswered questions

It is after midnight in Central Park in Burnaby, British Columbia. The mourners and the police have all gone home and the car park is empty.

Pools of halogen light bathe the entrance to the trail, marked by a boom gate, in the southeast corner of the park. The only sound is the incessant buzz of nearby electrical transformers, amplified by the stillness of the night. There are tennis courts and a pitch-and-putt golf course close by, and stark white tower blocks across the road. You can even see a couple of night-owl residents inside.

But take just a few steps beyond the boom gate, down the trail that leads towards the murder scene, and the darkness swiftly closes around you.

Tall fir trees block out the ambient light, and there is true silence. The huge Metrotown shopping complex and a bristling skyscraper district are five minutes away in this Vancouver satellite city, but you would never know it. The trail is paved, but on this moonless night it feels like deep forest, cool and dank and claustrophobic.

Vancouver police have revealed little about the killing of Marrisa Shen, a 13-year-old schoolgirl who lived nearby. Her body was found in brush somewhere off the trail at 1.10am last Wednesday, less than two hours after she was reported missing. Officers will not say exactly where Marrisa’s body was found, nor have they explained the specific circumstances that led to its so-swift discovery.

But they have issued a warning.