What follows is a true story, allowing for a certain amount of hyperbole and dramatic license. Or at least, the first bit is...

There you are, ambling down this pleasant street a couple of weeks ago, when you espy something rather luridly green sitting on the bonnet of a dark blue expensive looking motor. The rather pleasing contrast of colours catches your eye and, with a wry grin of recognition, you idly assume that someone has just popped inside for something they have forgotten.

Further inspection reveals the something to be a clod of long, elegant-looking yet entirely unmistakable grass, which rather surprises you. But it's not until you notice that it seems to be resting on the car without the benefit of its original plastic container that you joyfully start speculating on the exact circumstances of the appearance of the seemingly mundane item of flora, basing your daydream on the various interpretations of the word 'grass'.

At this point, you draw level with the vehicle and look up.

And without a beat you effortlessly weave the scruffy-looking chap with his hands on his hips standing next to a van which is just enough out of place on this avenue to positively scream tradesman into the story of mafia revenge with which you expect to entertain yourself over the next twenty minutes or so.

So the point at which you are passing him and he says "Excuse me" is actually slightly disappointing, as being asked the time or the way by this hitherto mysterious figure with distinct possibilities is going to be a bit of a letdown.

But it is with genuine surprise that you hear the words, said rather aggressively:

"Do you trust the police?"

At which point your imagnation promptly explodes with excitement.

...

Joey Tortellini watched the sunny bespectacled blond reach the end of the street and make to cross diagonally the road perpendicular, in doing so disappearing out of sight behind a gable end.

At which, he turned, and with one almighty blow, smacked the side of Alonzo's face with a bunched-up fist. "Ow many f**kin times do I af to tell you NOT to draw attention to our selfs?"

Alonzo had endured many such abuses and simply stood, not that such an action would have given him the opportunity to employ any other adverb even if he had known how. The blow meanwhile had been sufficiently violent to diametrically counteract any pretence of secrecy that Joey may have harboured. Curtains certainly twitched. A telephone may even have left its cradle en route to some wizzened and elderly feminine aural organ.

"Come on. Now we'll af to be quick. Sod. Inside. Now."

***

"So, lads. You got my grass?"

"Yes, Mr. Diablo. Course. Alonzo ..."

Joey stood palms and eye-brows raised expectantly. Alonzo's synapses whirred and clicked audibly like antique telephonic switchgear before he recognised what was expected and proffered forward the rolled up clod.

Mr. Diablo looked at the miniature green carpet that unfurled before him. Even a life of quasi-violence and Guy Ritchie-esque stupidity at the higher echelons of the class B narcotics market had not prepared him for this moment.

"WHAT the F**K is THAT?", he spat not without rhythm.

"It's grass Mr. Diablo, as requested".

"I can see it's grass, you bleedin' imbecile. It's green, it's bladelike, it look likes it's been lifted from the middle of STAMFORD F****N' BRIDGE. Now if this Saturday's game is in any way disrupted ..."

Alonzo shuffled and shot worried sideways glances from his shoes to Joey Tortellini, clearing his throat as he did so. Mr. Diablo just continued.

"Joey. Look at me. I'm sellin' grass ..."

"... Yes, course we know that Mr. Diablo, look, smell it. It's top notch ... make a lovely lawn ..."

Joey plucked a few blades between his thumb and index-finger and offered them to Mr. Diablo, as if he was proposing to share a toke. But Mr. Diablo swept Joey's hand aside, the green strands fell swiftly to the bone shag pile that carpeted the floor Mr. Diablo's establishment.

"GRASS, Joey, GRASS. Ganja, weed, pot Skunk. I'm a drug dealer, not a f****n' turf accountant. Now F**K OFF out of 'ere. And take your little piece of Wentworth with you."

...

It didn’t register at first.

At first it was just something to frown over as Nigel strode down his driveway fumbling for the keys and getting ready to activate the chirp of a disengaging lock. Outrage began building as he contemplated the idiocy of his wife in insisting that this was a perfect place to start social climbing from. Sure, the postcode was impressive, but was it worth putting up with the scaff and raff who messed up the genteel view of the thing by treating it as a throughfare to better things from their grotty bedsits two streets over? He could see one of them disappearing round the corner now. No doubt the offering languishing on his BMW bonnet was some kind of misaimed piece of rubbish she hadn’t the decency or the knowhow to aim properly at a bin, as people from any civilised country would do. Not that he was against immigrants of course. Tracy wouldn’t be able to manage without that girl from Poland coming in twice a week to help out. But he really wished they knew their place.

But even as he was moving an angry arm in anticipation of sweeping the whatever it was prementorarily onto the ground, Nigel paused. Grass? Why on earth would someone be letting fall clumps of grass all over the place?

And then it hit him.

They’d found out. They’d found him. They were coming for him. This was a warning. He’d heard they liked to play before they put the boot in. Kept the rest in line.

Looking wildly around, he immediately spotted the third out-of-place blot on his landscape as the hard-looking man in worryingly practical coveralls strode in a measured but purposeful fashion directly towards him, an angry scowl underlining the menace of the situation. Nigel froze in panic and watched his doom approach.

But there was a way out.

Frantically he pulled at the car door, before remembering it needed to be unlocked first. He looked up. The bruiser was closer now. Opening the door with a jerk, Nigel slid inside and scrabbled to get the keys in the ignition, dropping them twice. And still the thug got nearer, waving his arms now and starting to speak as he saw his quarry getting away. Fially, the engine engaged in a roar of revs and, crunching the gears in a way that would have him weeping on any other day, weeping, Nigel screached away.

Tom stopped dead from his charge down the street and watched the blue car crash through a red light and immediately get sideswiped by the big bus from the Big Bus company barrelling on its way to Big Ben. Later they told him that the chap inside hadn’t had a chance, smashed as he was into the no.10 coming the other way. Pity about all those tourists, of course, but there it was.

Odd too, that the man seemed to have got himself so worked up. After all, it was he, Tom, who should be livid.

He’d come back to pick up a few bits and bobs in preparation for starting work at number 23, nothing too complicated, a bit of replanting and general weeding, to see one of those mounted policemen they insisted on putting onto the beats round this way urging his horse past the van. And blowed if the stupid nag didn’t reach in the back and take a firm mouthful of the ornamental rye grass destined for Mrs Trebbit’s windowboxes, pull it right out of its box, take a few contemplative mouthfuls, and spit it out all over some poor bloke's expensive motor down the road.

It didn’t register at first.

In fact it took him a full ten minutes as he watched the copper disappear, oblivious, into the distance before he could speak at all. Properly put the wind up that dizzy piece of work who had the misfortune to be walking past when his brain finally recovered from the shock.

Served her right, sauntering down the road without a care in the world as though he hadn’t seen 100 pounds worth of infrastructure go up in saliva.

...

"Do you trust the police?"

Your jaw drops and your eyebrows fly upward. Perhaps he interprets all this facial agitation as a particularly unco-ordinated nod.

"Well, I don't. This used to be a safe neighbourhood. They've let it go to Hell. I get these kind of people parking outside my house all the time".
He scrutinises the white van aggressively. Two minutes ago, under the sunshine, such an adverb would have seemed incongruous.
"You're not the b*****d who nicked my last car, are you?" he suddenly hisses.

"Err...no, actually", you reply, scrambling for some safe ground between guilt-implying politeness and violent outrage. And, of course, you resort to the obvious excuse for staring at this madman's motor.
"I was only looking at it because there's that clump of grass on it", you add, sheepishly.

"So?"

You find yourself leaning backwards, as if the simple syllable is glinting at your throat.
"Well, it is a little unusual", you suggest, in an octave last visited during puberty.

His response is measured and deliberate. Under different circumstances, the tone would reassure, or even confirm sanity.
"The police never turn up when hooligans are poking round my car", he says, "so I have to do something about them myself. The last one had the most expensive alarm I could buy, but they still nicked it".

You begin to understand. "But nobody will steal a car with a plant on it", you chime in, nearly impressed with the idea. "They'll assume that someone's going to come back to collect it at any moment. That's really quite clever".

"Stipa Gigantica", continues the lunatic.

"Pardon?" You dare the questioning intonation, since the hostility seems to have relented somewhat.

"The Golden Oat", he says, evenly. "A very suitable plant for the purpose".

Now you're almost warming to this. "You could use something more threatening, even. How about a cactus?"

His eyes harden, and the sun disappears behind a cloud.
"You're not the b*****d who nicked my last plant, are you?"

...

In a wasteland deep in London's dock land, cars gathered. Summoned by coded e-mail, text, and posters plastered up overnight on Underground walls, they emerged headlightless in the dim early dawn. They were directed into position by overcoated figures in knee socks and caps, waving directions while deep in mobile talk with spotters and lookouts.

Scruffy Harry watched, spread-eagled on the roof of an abandoned warehouse, monocular to eye, notebook, flask and egg sandwiches to hand. The sandwich curled and the flask cooled, forgotten as he scribbled vehicle plate number after vehicle plate number in his notebook.

Now! He fumbled in the baggy pockets of his jacket for the camera, not daring to take his eye off the figure in the distance stepping up onto an 'X' reg. Range Rover. Finally he was on the verge of proof. Proof to break the illicit ring that threatened one of the bastions of civilisation.

The figure on the Range Rover took a last look round, received the 'all clear' nod, slid his overcoat off and stood resplendent in plus fours and a baby blue and primrose yellow lamb's wool jumper. Handed a nine iron he took a couple of practice swings then arced the ball away from the newly cropped patch of turf on the bonnet. A hundred synchronised heads swung up and round. A quickly hushed ripple of applause greeted the ball's landing on the edge of the turf on a Toyota Yaris.

***********

"Do you trust the police?"

There was more than aggressiveness. There was bitterness too.

"This is one of them. I saw it, saw it with my own eyes."

"UnderGolfers" he hissed with venom.

He glared at the bemused blonde he'd accosted. "You don't care do you? You don't even know do you? It's an UnderGolfer's car. There you go, ambling down the street, head in the clouds while they undermine the whole golfing network. Not paying club subscriptions, not paying their dues. " His voice rose. "They're destroying the foundation of our market economy."

"Do you know who this belongs to?" He pointed with shaking hand at the beturfed and dark blue motor. The blonde shook her head in an expected and ignored negative.

"Five years undercover. Five years I've been handing in evidence. Five years! And nothing!"

"Do you know who this belongs to?"

The blonde shook her head again, now feeling guilty at still not knowing.

"D.I."Tiger"Ironside, that's who!"