Wainwright is a spy for British Intelligence.
His area of expertise is the Far East, knowledge obtained while growing up in Shanghai where his father was a Chief Inspector for the International Concession in that city. Even though his father held an important law enforcement position, Wainwright's love of prowling areas of the city most foreigners never went got him into scrapes where only an ability to fight to defend yourself kept you from getting seriously dead. Over time he acquired an innate sense of potential danger which would help him in his future work.
After an education in England as a young man, he joined the National Service where he served for several years. His abilities with languages as well as his self-reliant ways got him noticed by scouts looking for talents outside the normal soldiering. When his enlistment ended, he was offered a job handling translations for a prominent bank and worked there a year before an invitation to a dinner with the bank president turned into an two hour interview in the man's den with scouts from the Secret Service. They had use for a man of Wainwright's history and ability and Wainwright was so bored by his job that he took the offer almost immediately. It did not take a genius to know the best area of the world to send someone like Wainwright and so it was back to the Far East that he headed.
Wainwright holds grudging respect for his boss, called the Gaffer, but absolutely no liking of the man or the things he forces Wainwright to do. He also has little use for paper pushers and even less for the bean counters who closely monitor his expense reports. Though now in his mid 30's with the last few working for the Gaffer, he still has a conscience and the decency to feel indecent at the things he is ordered to do and none of the rationale of the Gaffer can help him feel clean afterward. Yet he still follows the orders.