Nicola Tallant: ‘If there’s any proper real threat against a journalist, the State comes down on them’

A woman is standing in a coffee shop queue when she hears the voice of Nicola Tallant. Mortified, she starts scrambling in her handbag, thinking her phone had begun playing out loud in public. Her blushes are spared when she realises the crime journalist is standing, bemused, in the flesh, behind her.