“Look what I found, Daddy!” The kitten’s fur feels soft, like down, under my fingers. Euphemia’s face is aglow with excitement. I don’t know what breaks my heart more: that one glance tells me the kitten is dying, or that I cannot keep this precious smile on our daughter’s lips. You always told me I couldn’t help but try to save the world. It hurts every time, realising I won’t be able to.

“Where did you find it?” I ask Euphemia. Wrong question. She hesitates, just for a second. Six years old and already contemplating the benefits of a lie—she got thatfrom you. I can see the precise moment she decides risking to tell me the truth.

“The docks,” she mumbles. My frown makes her hunch her shoulders and pout—she knows she’s done something wrong, but not quite wrong enough to be punished for it. I almost yell at her anyway. The docks are overflowing with contaminants and pollution and might worsen her cough; but then, everything might worsen her cough and she will only reply that you live there and that’s the end of the discussion. I can’t forbid Euphemia from visiting her mother. I wipe my eyes to stop myself from scowling. Euphemia watches me carefully, the kitten pressed against her chest. It’s a grey, scrawny thing, all paws and huge, mucus-encrusted eyes, trembling faintly in her hands. I cannot tell if it does so out of shock or cold or a pathetic attempt at purring.

“Sweetheart.” I sigh, making my voice as soft as it will go, then go down on one knee for good measure. “The kitten is very sick. You know it’s going to die.” My tone catches Euphemia by surprise. Her face waxes like the sky, clear one moment, then full of gathering clouds. The desperation in her eyes is like a knife slicing my heart into pieces. I wish I could take the kitten away quietly, make her forget she ever found it.

“No,” Euphemia says loudly, as if saying things loudly enough will make them come true. She resembles you so thoroughly it hurts to look at her. “It can’t. You can’t let it, Daddy! It’s so small and soft and…” She runs out of arguments and her eyes start filling with tears. It’s a horrible thing, to feel so helpless. I wish I could do something, anything. I wish I could bring the kitten to a vet and spend a stupid amount of money and resources to make it live, like my parents would have. I wish a lot of things. A knock at the door saves me from answering and I’m stupidly glad about it.

It’s Agnes, my colleague, face flushed with agitation and waving her phone. “Emergency call. We got a spill.”

I throw a glance at Euphemia, who has used my distraction to retreat into a corner, as if I might start taking the kitten from her any moment. I grab my coat. “You okay on your own, sweetheart?” It’s Sunday afternoon, no school, and she’s a big girl.

Euphemia nods and pets the kitten. I close my eyes for a second before I give in.

“If you really want to keep the kitten…” Euphemia’s eyes widen with hope. “But you have to promise to take care of it. Even if it’s sick. Even if it doesn’t want to be petted.” I know this is going to end horribly, in tears and despair, but I don’t know how to avert this disaster. “Just… I don’t… Just don’t expect it to live very long.”

Euphemia nods gravely as I hurry to join Agnes. Of course, she’ll utterly ignore my advice. By the time I return home the kitten will already be sleeping on her pillow, it will have food and a blanket and a name. A very fitting name at that, grey and insubstantial like the kitten itself. She’ll call it Fog.

Spill is a bit of an exaggeration. What we have are two unlucky fishermen, the beaten-up engine of their dingy leaking petrol. The younger of the two, broad-shouldered, sweating in the heat and with a brutish twist to his mouth, spits in the water as we draw near. We’re not popular, in general.

“Office for environmental protection,” Agnes barks, trying to glower them into submission. I still marvel at how righteous she manages to sound, as if there’s no place in her mind for doubt. Reminds me of you, when we were younger. For Agnes everything is black or white, right or wrong. We’re the good ones, they’re the bad ones. I don’t know where she managed to scavenge ideals in this world of ours.

The coast guard boat that gave us notice stays in the background. It’s one of these sleek new vessels with nothing but a sail to manoeuvre with. Our boat is smaller, lighter, with an electric engine and a coast-guard skipper to steer it, but she, too, tries to stay as inconspicuous as possible. All the coast-guards always do. I can’t quite tell if it’s a ploy to earn the fishermen’s trust, keeping their distance from us, or if they simply dislike the OEP as well.

“We didn’t do nothing.” Brutish spits again, resulting in a disgusting blob of phlegm floating on the water. I spot smears of blood and fish guts staining the inside of their dingy, belying his words, but of course they dumped their catch at first sight of the coast guard. They kept their rods, though. Good fishing rods are hard to come by.

“You are outside of sanctioned fishing grounds.” A part of me hates myself for sounding so damn posh. Another part of me hates the fishermen for being so damn stupid. It’s not that they’re not allowed to fish here because of protected species, we’re way past that. The fish are toxic. Micro-plastic pollution, mingled with heavy metals and pesticides and the fish gobble it all up as if it was plankton. By now, the toxicity levels are bad enough to triple your risk for cancer, and probably sterilize you for good.

“Didn’t do no fishing,” the other one, grizzly and weather-beaten, replies. Sweat pools in the creases around his eyes. Stubborn. Agnes scoffs, wrinkling her nose over the obvious stench of fish guts. “Nah, you just came out here for a stroll in the park.”

“We can go wherever we damn like,” Brutish says. I don’t much like the look of him, the way he eyes Agnes as if her giving orders is a personal affront to his manliness.

I’m almost glad for the heavy weight of the gun at my side; as if I hadn’t been the one protesting loudest when the office made them mandatory. I don’t like being armed. I’m clumsy and insecure even at the shooting range, never mind a real fight. But as I said: we’re not popular. It took our society until after the world was ruined to realise that ruining the world might have been a crime. Some people still can’t accept it.

I point at the fishermen’s wrecked engine. An iridescent carpet of petrol dances over the waves, slowly stretching its tendrils in all directions. The engine looks like a DIY project, rusty and about to fall apart. I’m surprised they made it this far out.

“Grade three fuel spill. And I doubt the manufacturer can be held liable. That’s a fine and a first warning.” My words drift over the water into sullen silence. For a second, I think Brutish will cause trouble, but he’s smarter than I gave him credit for because he glances at the waiting coast-guard boat and changes his mind. His buddy merely blanches and I try, without success, not to feel sorry for him. You used to tell me I’m shit at my job—too much compassion, too many scruples—because there’s never just black and white, only infinite shades of grey. If I’m honest with myself, I know the fishermen know their catch is toxic, how could they not? But they fish anyway, because there aren’t enough jobs and not enough food and not enough hope going around. Dying later and living today, your motto stuck in my head.

“IDs, please,” I remind them. Brutish reluctantly holds out his wrist to be scanned, but the old fisherman surprises us all by producing an old-fashioned paper passport, carefully wrapped in a plastic bag. He actually looks guilty when I wave the coast-guard boat over and they start deploying the small boom and the skimmers to soak up the fuel. It’s always the old ones who feel guilty, the ones who still remember the world could have been different if enough of us had actually cared.

On our way back to harbour, we spot the first dead fish.