Twenty years ago, a spate of bank heists hit London’s Financial District—numbering six by the time Grant’s team turned their focus on Silver. All the robberies took place during the noon hour, which coincided with the lunch break that Silver took from the garage where he’d been a mechanic for ten years. It had been a colleague of Silver’s that had tipped the Yard, having stumbled upon him in the WC picking up bundles of cash that had spilled on the floor in a stall where Prior had been tallying his latest haul.

Grant had set up surveillance on the mechanic and days later watched him leave the garage with a sandwich, only to dump it in a trash bin the minute he rounded the corner. Prior walked two more blocks, dug a kerchief out of his pocket, and donned it as a mask. Then he ducked into a Barclays, where he pulled a knife and demanded the nearest teller empty the till.

When Grant’s team descended upon the bank, things took a turn for the worse. Prior grabbed Abby Van Dyke, who’d been waiting to cash her weekly check, and brought the knife to her throat—attempting to use her as a hostage shield.

Abby had started screaming and tried to squiggle free. That was when Silver cut her with the knife. With blood on his hands, Silver had loosened his grip just enough and Abby tumbled to the ground. Silver whirled to make a break for it—only to run directly into then-Sergeant Grant, who threw his arms around the misguided mechanic. Grant was quickly joined by the rest of his team, who leaped onto Prior Silver like he had the ball at the bottom of a rugby scrum.

The crime wave that had brought the Financial District to its knees was over.

Having seen the news on the telly, Allison and a twelve-year-old Rachel had greeted Grant when he returned with hugs and admonishments—his wife taking him to task for putting himself in such danger. He told her it all went with the job, but he was home now, and London was one criminal safer—for at least an evening.

Allison started worrying again when Grant took the stand at Prior Silver’s trial. Grant’s testimony regarding the knife attack on Abby had been particularly damning. It got Silver a thirty-year prison sentence as opposed to a term half that length if charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon hadn’t been added to the robbery counts. Silver began screaming during Grant’s testimony—shouting he hadn’t meant to cut Abby, that the knife had slipped when he was backing out of the bank. Once order was restored, Grant doubled down, claiming Silver’s actions had been purposeful and fraught with malice to fend off the police.