The fishwives told tales of Edinburgh and said it was crammed tighter with folk than pebbles on a beach. They spoke of Fishmarket Close, which you could smell before you got to it and hear the cries of ‘Fresh fish’ soar to the skies like gulls. They spoke of buildings ten storeys tall. They said it was a town in layers, where the rich lived on the top floors and the poor in the cellars, and all manner in between. But regardless of whether you were a chimney sweep or a scholar, everyone rubbed shoulders with everyone else on account of how narrow the streets and stairs were.

There were societies for this and societies for that. Servants of some of the high ladies would buy the cheapest fish to be distributed to the poor, and servants of other high folk would order buckets of oysters for balls. There were gin shops and medicine shops and fortune-tellers and whores. Cock-fights and fiddle players who’d pass caps for coins. Amongst it all scurried scores of caddies: men and boys in blue aprons, who ran errands and carted water and cried the news and sold pamphlets. The fishwives and the salt-sellers were similar kin, all coming into town each morning on rickety carts from the edges of the Forth, and they were looked down upon by those who lived in the closes and sold linens and wines and jewels.

My Edinburgh had none of this florid life and colour. My Edinburgh was a cell high up in the tolbooth, bleak and dark, and filled with wretched women like me and those I had met in the House of Correction.

The oldest was so old she died in her sleep two days after I arrived and was found slumped at dawn. The youngest was a pickpocket, aged no older than twelve when she was flung in beside us, although she did not know the year of her birth and we all sat with her and helped her guess her age by the size of her and the whiteness of her teeth, and the fact that she had not bled yet and was very attached to a cloth doll. She was set for a public whipping and said, with bravado, that she was more than ready for it.

On my third day a young man came to visit me and said he had been appointed by the court. He sat in the chair on the other side of the barred gate that fenced us in. Men in wigs and capes would come and go from this chair, speaking in sombre tones to the women whose names they called out. He looked no older than me, with a patch of hair at his lip that might one day become a moustache. He spoke in whispers, as though he was embarrassed to be there. His name was Mr Suttie and he was my advocate.

‘I have no money for an advocate, sir,’ I warned him.