Past perfect | - | LearnEnglish
learnenglish.britishcouncil.org › past-perfectWe can use the past perfect to show the order of two past events. The past perfect shows the earlier action and the past simple shows the later action. When the police arrived, the thief had escaped. It doesn't matter in which order we say the two events. The following sentence has the same meaning. The thief had escaped when the police arrived.