How I didn't get another cat

I went to my GP for some damn paper. One of the glories of being ill with something unidentifiable is that one does lots of walking.
On my way back, I was crossing a road and I saw two policemen standing above what looked like a dead cat. They were on my way and I was all oh, poor kitty, so I went to have a look. Dead cat was still breathing and one of the police idjits was standing on its tail so that it wouldn't run away. I knelt down because, well, a scared and hurt kitty can always do with a bit of calm talk and stroking. The police had already called a veterinary ambulance, which arrived shortly, and meantime, they asked me what would I have done if I found said cat. "Sir, I'd stop this passing taxi and go to the closest vet," I answered and police idjits gave me a disbelieving and puzzled look. The vet arrived, asked whether I'm the owner, Nope, I said, asked the police who is the owner, Dunno, said they, and the vet remarked that if the cat isn't microchipped, he might need to put him down because nobody would pay for all that hassle.

There goes my food budget for a month, I decided, and I said that I'm taking over the responsibility, the bills and be it needed, the cat. I drove to the clinic with the vet, kitty needed to be sedated anyway so I was hanging around the waiting room. Meantime, I alarmed a friend who alarmed the internetz, and pondered how this might turn out. The cat was a castrated tom, blue, although too thin to be a British Shorthair, and not that furry as well, but anyway, it should be someone's cat and whoever that someone may be, they might miss their kitty, but if he's not chipped, someone else who is at hand needs to deal with matters. Also, the cat didn't look really badly injured, there was something obviously wrong with his front paw and he was bleeding from his mouth, but no bits and pieces were missing nor visibly damaged beyond repair, so I was going through my list of friends, relatives and random strangers who could be persuaded to care for a cat.
The owners appeared, though. The police idjits were loitering around the area and stopped for a smoke just in front of their house when the cat owners were coming home from somewhere. Cat owners asked what's up, police mentioned the cat, they went Oh shit, that's our cat, and were promptly dispatched to said clinic. I learned that the cat was indeed British Shorthair, who had been lost for a few weeks and had returned stick thin only a few days ago.

I happily accepted a drive home from them and left them my phone number to keep me informed, all the vet told us that the kitty's tongue was partly torn off, stitched back and hopefully, it would heal.

Alas, later in the afternoon, the lady called me that the kitty didn't make it.

I was devastated. Which felt odd, I fostered cats and had a few die and those were cats I had around for quite a time, whom I fed medicines and whose diarrhoea I cleaned, and their deaths touched me less than the of a cat I've stroked a few times when he was lounging on the garden fence and, well, when lying hurt in the curb. I spent the evening in solitary drinking.

I wonder, is it too insensitive to point the people at my friend who has four sweet British Shorthair kittens?