Redwood is retiring. DCI Nicola Wall is meeting the Portuguese next week.
May 2013: Vogue true crimeAnother grey day, this time in central London, and the aftershocks of the Met's corruption scandals and Operations Weeting and Elveden are still rippling the walls of the meeting room at Scotland Yard, where I find DCI Nicola Wall. Wall has served 25 years at the Met, eight as a DCI, and heads up the Murder Investigation Team in west London. She's also a trained hostage and crisis negotiator. Married two years ago, her husband does contract work in the Middle East and she sees him sporadically. "We don't have children," she says briskly. "I've got the greatest respect for women who balance both - because that's fantastic - but I don't have to. And I've got a house in Putney, and I have a really nice life."
For Wall, there is no typical murder. No two jobs are the same. "We could end up with the Tia Sharp jobs of this world," she says of the 12-year-old whose body was discovered at her grandmother's house last August. "And then there are jobs that are equally as difficult as those, but that just somehow don't get that media spark." She usually has about six or seven live cases at any one time, and prides herself on her investigative speed; she is only partially joking when she attributes her low media profile to the fact "we solve cases so quickly nobody gets involved…"
A diminutive peroxide blonde, with fine cheekbones and a faint Derbyshire accent, she cuts an unusual figure. "I'm a bit different," she admits. "The jury nearly fell over last time I was in the box!" She's glad that the current crop of TV detectives are not "as mumsy" as their forebears and has a small fondness for Saga Noren "because she's quite feminine, very glamorous, very pretty and very capable, too."
As plainclothes officers, the detectives are united in their determination to look good. Wall especially enjoys playing with her femininity, if only to shake up the stuffier factions of the Met that still exist. "I usually wear a heel, and I always paint my nails," she says with a toss of her well-groomed head. "They usually brighten a day."
http://www.vogue.co.uk/news/2013/04/04/may-2013-vogue-true-crime