On a shopping trip one day, Eugene Wren came across an envelope containing money. For some reason, rather than report it to the police, he wrote a note and stuck it up on lamppost near his house: 'Found in Chepstow Villas, a sum of money between eighty and a hundred and sixty pounds. Anyone who has lost such a sum should apply to the phone number below.' This note would link the lives of a number of very different people - each with their obsessions, problems and dreams and despairs. And through it the hectic life of Portobello would bustle on.