<u>Answer:</u>
There was a booming knock at the door and a loud shout.
"Open up!"
From inside came the rattle of a lock, and then the door opened barely half an inch. A woman, dishevelled and clearly shaken,peered through hesitantly.
"Can I help you?"
Detective Stirland loomed large before her. He flipped open his ID badge.
"Where’s Joe, Mandy?"
"What’s this about?" she stammered.
Stirland applied his weight to the door and the woman stepped backwards as it swung open.
"I’ll ask the questions. We know he’s here."
Her eyes flitted from his face to the lounge door and back.
"Joe!"
She folded her arms defiantly, reluctantly.
"Joe, you’d better come out. The police are here."
<u>Explanation:</u>
Inverted commas or speech marks are mainly used to indicate the beginning and ending of a direct speech, words exactly in the order as they were spoken.
So here, in this passage, we have made use of speech marks to show the direct speech dialogues used in the story.
